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A MOUTH IS YORKSHIRE. 



a. t^o 6 !- - Ci3 



MONTH IN YORKSHIRE 



By WALTER WHITE, 



AUXHOK OF 



Londoner's walk to the land's end," " on foot 
through tyrol," &c. 



" Know most of the rooms of thy native 
country, before thou goest over the threshold 
thereof; especially, seeing England presents 
thee with so many observables." — Fuller. 



LONDON : 
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 

MDCCCLVIII. 

[The rigid of Translation is reserved."] 






TRANSFER 



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Ste ~^ 1943 
Serial Recora Division 
Tbs LitaH of Gongrsss 



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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
A Short Chapter to begin with . 



CHAPTER II. 

Estuary of the Humber — Sunk Island— Land versus Water — 
Dutch Phenomena — Cleathorpes — Grimsby — Paul — River 
Freaks — Mud— Stukeley and Drayton — Fluvial Parliament — 
Hull — The Thieves' Litany — Docks and Drainage — More Dutch 
Phenomena— The High Church — Thousands of Piles — The 
Citadel — The Cemetery — A Countryman's Voyage to China — 
An Aid to Macadam 



CHAPTER III. 

A Railway Trip — More Land Reclamation — Hedon — Historical 
Recollections — Burstwick — The Earls of Albemarle — Keying- 
ham — The Duke of York — Winestead — Andrew Marvell's 
Birthplace — A Glimpse of the Patriot — Patrington — A Church 
to be proud of — The Hildyard Arms — Feminine Paper-hangers 
— Walk to Spurn — Talk with a Painter — Welwick — Yellow 
Ochre and Cleanliness — Skeffling — Humber Bank — Miles of 
Mud— Kilnsea— Burstall Garth— The Greedy Sea— The Sand- 
bank — A Lost Town, Ravenser Odd — A Reminiscence from 
Shakspeare — The Spurn Lighthouse — Withernsea — Owthorne 
— Sister Churches — The Ghastly Churchyard — A Retort for a 
Fool— A Word for Philologists 20 



CHAPTER IV. 

Northern Manners — Cottingham — The Romance of Baynard Castle 
— Beverley — Yorkshire Dialect — The Farmers' Breakfast — 



vi CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Glimpses of the Town — Antiquities and Constables — The Mins- 
ter — Yellow Ochre — The Percy Shrine— The Murdered Earl — 
The Costly Funeral — The Sisters' Tomb — Rhyming Legend — 
The Fridstool— The Belfry 39 



CHAPTER V. 

A Scotchman's Observations — The Prospect — The Anatomy of 
Beverley — Historical Associations — The Brigantes — The Druids 
— Austin's Stone — The Saxons — Coin and Paulinus — Down 
with Paganism — A great Baptism — St. John of Beverley — 
Athelstan and Brunanburgh — The Sanctuary — The Conqueror 
— Archbishop Thurstan's Privileges — The Sacrilegious Mayor — 
Battle of the Standard — St. John's Miracles — Brigand Burgesses 
— Annual Football — Surrounding Sites — Watton and Meaux — 
Etymologies — King Athelstan's Charter 47 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Great Drain — The Carrs — Submerged Forest — River Hull — 
Tickton — Routh — Tippling Rustics — A Cooler for Combatants 
— The Blind Fiddler — The Improvised Song — The Donkey 
Races — Specimens of Yorkshiremen — Good Wages — A Peep at 
Cottage Life — Ways and Means — A Paragraph for Bachelors — 
Hornsea Mere — The Abbots' Duel — Hornsea Church — The 
Marine Hotel 58 



CHAPTER VII. 

Coast Scenery — A waning Mere, and wasting Cliffs — The Rain and 
the Sea — Encroachment prevented — Economy of the Hotel — A 
Start on the Sands — Pleasure of Walking — Cure for a bad Con- 
science — Phenomena of the Shore— Curious Forms in the Cliffs 
— Fossil Remains — Strange Boulders — A Villager's Etymology 
— Reminiscences of " Bonypart " and Paul Jones — The last 
House— Chalk and Clay — Bridlington — One of the Gipseys — 
Paul Jones again — The Sea-Fight — A Reminiscence of Mont- 
gomery 69 



CHAPTER VIII. 

What the Boarding-House thought — Landslips — Yarborough 
House— The Dane's Dike— Higher Cliffs — The South Landing 
— The Flamborough Fleet — Ida, the Flamebearer — A Storm — A 
Talk in a Lime-kiln — Flamborough Fishermen — Coffee before 
Rum — No Drunkards — A Landlord's Experiences — Old-fashioned 
Honestv 80 



CONTENTS. VU 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

Men's and Women's Wages — The Signal Tower — The passing Fleet 
— The Lighthouse — The Inland View — Cliff Scenery — Out- 
stretching Reefs — Selwicks Bay — Down to the Beach — Aspect 
of the Cliffs — The Matron — Lessons in Pools — Caverns — The 
King and Queen — Arched Promontories — The North Landing — 
The Herring- Fishers — Pleasure Parties — Robin Lyth's Hole — 
Kirk Hole — View across Little Denmark — Speeton — End of the 
Chalk— Walk to Filev 86 



CHAPTER X. 

Old and New Filey — The Ravine — Filey Brig — Breaking Waves 
— Rugged Cliffs — Prochronic Gravel — Gristhorpe Bay — In- 
sulated Column— Lofty Cliffs— Fossil Plants— Red Cliff— Cay- 
ton Bay — Up to the Road — Bare Prospect — Cromwell Hotel 
and Oliver's Mount — Scarborough — The Esplanade — Watering- 
Place Phenomena — The Cliff Bridge— The Museum— The Spa 
—The Old Town— The Harbour— The Castle Rock— The An- 
cient Keep — The Prospect — Reminiscences: of Harold Hardrada ; 
of Pembroke's Siege ; of the Papists' Surprise ; of George Fox ; 
of Robin Hood — The One Artilleryman — Scarborough News- 
papers — Cloughton — The Village Inn, and its Guests — Tudds 
and Pooads 95 



CHAPTER XL 

From Cloughton to Haiburn Wyke — The embowered Path — Ap- 
proach to the Sea — Rock, Water, and Foliage — Heavy Walking 
— Staintondale Cliffs— The Undercliff— The Peak— Raven Hall 
— Robin Hood's Bay — A Trespass — Alum-Works — Waterfalls — 
Bay Town — Manners and Customs of the Natives — Coal Trade 
— The Churchyard — Epitaphs — Black-a-moor — Hawsker — 
Vale of Pickering — Robin Hood and Little John's Archery — 
Whitby Abbey— Beautiful Ruin— St. Hilda, Wilfrid, and Cced- 
mon — Legends — A Fallen Tower — St. Mary's Church — Whitby 
— The Vale of Esk — Specimens of Popular Hymns . . .112 



CHAPTER XII. 

Whitby's Attractions — The Pier — The River-Mouth — The Museum 
— Saurians and Ammonites — An enthusiastic Botanist — Jet in 
the Cliffs, and in the Workshop — Jet Carvers and Polishers — 
Jet Ornaments — The Quakers' Meeting — A Mechanics' Institute 
— Memorable Names — Trip to Grosmont — The Basaltic Dike — 
Quarries and Ironstone — Thrifty Cottagers — Abbeys and Hovels 
—A Stingy Landlord — Egton Bridge— Eskdale Woods— The 

's Bridge 127 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PAGE 

To Upgang— Enter Cleveland— East Row— The first Alum-Maker 
— Sandsend — Alum- Works— The huge Gap — Hewing the Alum 
Shale — Limestone Nodules: Mulgrave Cement — Swarms of 
Fossils— Burning the Shale — Volcanic Phenomena — From Fire 
to Water — The Cisterns — Soaking and Pumping — The Evapo- 
rating Pans — The Crystallizing Process — The Roching Casks — 
Brilliant Crystals — A Chemical Triumph — Rough Epsoms .137 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Mulgrave Park— Giant Wade— Ubba's Landing-place— The Bog- 
gle-boggarts — The Fairy's Chase— Superstitions— The Knight 
of the Evil Lake — Lythe— St. Oswald's Church — Goldsborough 
— Kettleness — Rugged Cliffs and Beach — Runswick Bay — Hob- 
Hole — Cure for Whooping-cough — Jet Diggers — Runswick — 
Hinderwell — Horticultural Ravine — Staithes — A curious Fish- 
ing-town — The Black Minstrels — A close-neaved Crowd — The 
Cod and Lobster — Houses washed away — Queer back Premises 
— The Termagants' Duel — Fisherman's Talk — Cobles and Yawls 
— Dutch and French Poachers — Tap-room Talk — Reminiscences 
of Captain Cook 147 

CHAPTER XV. 

Last Day by the Sea — Boulby — Magnificent Cliffs — Lofthouse 
and Zachary Moore — The Snake-killer — The Wyvern — Eh! 
Packman — Skinningrave — Smugglers and Privateers — The 
Bruce's Privileges — What the old Chronicler says — Story about 
a Sea-Man — The Groaning Creek — Huntcliff Nab — Rosebury 
Topping — Saltburn — Cormorant Shooters — Cunning Seals — 
Miles of Sands — Marske — A memorable Grave — Redcar — The 
Estuary of Tees — Asylum Harbour — Recreations for Visitors 
— William Hutton's Description — Farewell to the Sea . .162 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Leave Redcar — A Cricket-Match — Coatham — Kirkleatham— The 
Old Hospital — The Library — Sir William Turner's Tomb — 
Cook, Omai, and Banks — The Hero of Dettingen — Yearby Bank 
— Upleatham — Guisborough — Past and Present — Tomb of 
Robert Bruce — Priory Ruins — Hemingford, Pursglove, and Sir 
Thomas Chaloner — Pretty Scenery — The Spa — More Money, 
less Morals — What George Fox's Proselytes did — John Wesley's 
Preaching — Hutton - Lowcross — Rustics of Taste — Rosebury 
Topping — Lazy Enjoyment — The Prospect: from Black- a-moor 
to Northumberland — Cook's Monument — Canny Yatton — The 



CONTENTS. IX 

PAGE 

Quakers' School — A Legend — Skelton — Sterne and Eugenius — 
Visitors from Middlesbro' — A Fatal Town — Newton — Diggers' 
Talk — Marton, Cook's Birthplace — Stockton — Darlington . 174 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Locomotive, Number One — Barnard Castle — Baliol's Tower — 
From Canute to the Duke of Cleveland — Historic Scenery — A 
surprised Northumbrian — The bearded Hermit — Beauty of Tees- 
dale — Egliston Abbey — The Artist and his Wife — Dotheboys 
Hall — Rokeby — Greta Bridge — Mortham Tower — Brignall 
Banks — A Pilgrimage to Wycliffe — Fate of the Inns — The 
Felon Sow— A Journey by Omnibus — Lartington — Cotherstone 
— Scandinavian Traces — Romaldkirk — Middleton-in-Teesdale 
—Wild Scenery— High Force Inn— The Voice of the Fall .192 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Early Morn — High Force— Rock and Water — A Talk with the 
Waitress — Hills and Cottages — Cronkley Scar — The Weel — 
Caldron Snout — Soothing Sound — Scrap from an Album — View 
into Birkdale — A Quest for Dinner — A Westmoreland Farm — 
Household Matters— High Cope Nick — Mickle Fell— The Boys' 
Talk — The Hill- top — Glorious Prospect— A Descent— Solitude 
and Silence — A Moss — Stainmoor — Brough — The Castle Ruin 
— Reminiscences . . 206 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Return into Yorkshire— The Old Pedlar — Oh ! for the olden Time 
—"The Bible, indeed!" — An Emissary— Wild Boar Fell— 
Shunnor Fell — Mallerstang— The Eden— A Mountain Walk — 
Tan Hill — Brown Landscape— A School wanted — Swaledale — 
From Ling to Grass — A Talk with Lead Miners — Stonesdale 
— Work for a Missionary — Thwaite — A Jolly Landlord — A 
Ruined Town — The School at Muker — A Nickname — Butter- 
tubs Pass — View into Wensleydale — Lord Wharncliffe's Lodge 
— Simonstone — Hardraw Scar — Geological Phenomenon— A 
Frozen Cooe — Hawes 222 



CHAPTER XX. 

Bainbridge— " If you had wanted a Wife" — A Ramble— Millgill 
Force— Whitfell Force— A lovely Dell— The Roman Camp— 
The Forest Horn, and the old Hornblower — Haymaking — A 
Cockney Raker — Wensleydale Scythemen — A Friend indeed — 
Addleborough— Curlers and Grouse— The First Teapot — Nasty 

b 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Greens — The Prospect — Askrigg — Bolton Castle — Penhill — 
Middlekam — Miles Coverdale's Birthplace — Jervaux Abbey — 
Moses's Principia — Nappa Hall — The Metcalfes — The Knight 
and the King — The Springs — Spoliation of the Druids — The 
great Cromlech — Legend — An ancient Village — Simmer Water 
— An advice for Anglers — More Legends — Counterside — Money- 
grubbers — Widdale — Newby Head ,. 234 



CHAPTER XXL 

About Gimmer Hogs — Gearstones — Source of the Ribble — Wea- 
thercote Cave — An underground "Waterfall — A Gem of a Cave — 
Jingle Pot — The silly Ducks — Hurtle Pot — The Boggart — A 
Reminiscence of the Doctor — Chapel-le-Dale — Remarkable 
Scenery — Ingleborough — Ingleton — Craven — Young Daniel 
Dove, and Long Miles — Clapham — Ingleborough Cave — Sta- 
lactite and Stalagmite — Marvellous Spectacle — Pillar Hall — 
Weird Music — Treacherous Pools — The Abyss — How Stalactite 
forms — The Jockey Cap — Cross Arches — The Long Gallery — 
The Giants' Hall— Mysterious Waterfall— A Trouty Beck— The 
Bar Parlour — A Bradford Spinner 251 



CHAPTER XXII. 

By Rail to Skipton ; — A Stony Town — Church and Castle — The 
Cliffords — Wharfedale — Bolton Abbey — Picturesque Ruins — A 
Foot-Bath— Scraps from Wordsworth— Bolton Park— The Strid 
— Barden Tower — The Wharfe— The Shepherd Lord — Reading 
to Grandfather — A Cup of Tea — Cheerful Hospitality — Trout 
Fishing— Gale Beck — SymonSeat — A Real Entertainer— Burn- 
sail — A Drink of Porter — Immoralities — Threshfield — Kilnsey 
— The Crag — Kettlewell — A Primitive Village — Great Whern- 
side — Starbottom— Buckden — Last View of AVharfedale — Cray 
— Bishopdale — A Pleasant Lane — Bolton Castle — Penhill — 
Aysgarth — Dead Pastimes — Decrease of Quakers — Failure of a 
Mission — Why and Wherefore — Aysgarth Force — Drunken 
Barnabv — Inroad of Fashion 271 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Walk — Carperby — Despotic Hay-time — Bolton Castle — The 
Village — Queen Mary's Prison — Redmire — Scarthe Nick — 
Pleasing Landscape — Halfpenny House — Hart Leap Well — View 
into Swaledale — Richmond — The Castle — Historic Names — The 
Keep — St. Martin's Cell — Easby Abbey — Beautiful Ruins — 
King Arthur and Sleeping Warriors — Ripon — View from the 
Minster Tower— Archbishop Wilfrid— The €rypt— The Nightly 



CONTENTS. XI 

PAGE 

Horn— To Studley — Surprising Trick — Robin Hood's Well — 
Fountains Abbey — Pop goes the Weasel — The Ruins — Robin 
Hood and the Curtail Friar — To Thirsk — The Ancient Elm — 
Epitaphs 292 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Sutton : a pretty Village — The Hambleton Hills — Gormire Lake 
— Zigzags — A Table-Land — Boy and Bull Pup — Skawton — 
Ryedale — Rievaulx Abbey — Walter L'Espec — A Charming 
Ruin— The Terrace — The Pavilion — Helmsley — T'Boos — 
Kirkby Moorside — Helmsley Castle — A River Swallowed — 
Howardian Hills — Oswaldkirk — Gilling — Fairfax Hall — Cox- 
wold — Sterne's Residence — York — The Minster Tower — The 
Four Bars — The City Walls — The Ouse Legend — Yorkshire 
Philosophical Society — Ruins and Antiquities — St. Mary's 
Lodge 308 



CHAPTER XXV. 

By Rail to Leeds — Kirkstall Abbey — Valley of the Aire — Flight 
to Settle — Giggleswick — Drunken Barnaby again — Nymph and 
Satyr — The Astonished Bagman— What do they Addle? — 
View from Castleber — George Fox's Vision on Pendle Hill — 
Walk to Maum— Companions — Horse versus Scenery — Talk by 
the Way — Little Wit, muckle Work — Malham Tarn— Ale for 
Recompense — Malham — Hospitality — Gordale Scar — Scenery 
versus Horse — Trap for Trout — A Brookside Musing — Malham 
Cove — Source of the Aire — To Keighley 321 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Keighley — Men in Pinafores — Walk to Haworth — Charlotte 
Bronte's Birthplace— The Church — The Pew— The Tombstone 
— The Marriage Register — Shipley — Saltaire — A Model Town 
— Household Arrangements— I isn't the Gaffer — A Model Fac- 
tory — Acres of Floors— Miles of Shafting — Weaving Shed — 
Thirty Thousand Yards a Day — Cunning Machinery — First 
Fleeces — Shipley Feast — Scraps of Dialect — To Bradford — Rival 
Towns — Yorkshire Sleuth-hounds — Die like a Britoner . . 333 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Bradford's Fame — Visit to Warehouses — A Smoky Prospect — 
Ways and Means of Trade— What John Bull likes — What 
Brother Jonathan likes — Vulcan's Head-quarters — Cleckbeaton 
— Heckmondwike— Busy Traffic— Mirfield— Robin Hood's Grave 



n CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

— Batley the Shoddyopolis — All the World's Tatters— Aspects 
of Batley — A Boy capt— The Devil's Den — Grinding Rags — 
Mixing and Oiling — Shoddy and Shoddy — Tricks with Rags 
— The Scribbling Machine — Short Flocks, Long Threads — 
Spinners and Weavers — Dyeing, Dressing, and Pressing — A 
Moral in Shoddy — A Surprise of Real Cloth— Iron, Lead, and 
Coal — To Wakefield — A Disappointment — The Old Chapel — 
The Battle-field— To Barnsley— Bairnsla Dialect— Sheffield . 347 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Clouds of Blacks— What Sheffield -was and is — A Detestable 
Town — Razors and Knives — Perfect Work, Imperfect Workmen 
—Foul Talk — How Files are Made — Good Iron, Good Steel— 
Breaking-tip and Melting — Making the Crucibles— Casting — 
Ingots — File Forgers — Machinery Baffled — Cutting the Teeth — 
Hardening— Cleaning and Testing — Elliott's Statue — A Ramble 
to the Corn-law Rhymer's Haunt — Rivelin— Bilberry-gatherers 
— Ribbledin — The Poet's Words — A Desecration — To Man- 
chester — A few Words on the Exhibition 363 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
A Short Chapter to end with 378 

Index . .383 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER I. 

A SHORT CHAPTER TO BEGIN WITH. 

I HAD cheerful recollections of Yorkshire. My first 
lessons in self-reliance and long walks were learned in 
that county. I could not forget how, fresh from the 
south, I had been as much astonished at the tall, 
stalwart forms of the men, their strange rustic dialect 
and rough manners, as by their hearty hospitality. 
Nor could I fail to remember the contrast between 
the bleak outside of certain farm-houses and the rude 
homely comfort inside, where a ruddy turf fire glowed 
on the hearth, and mutton hams, and oaten bread, and 
store of victual burdened the racks of the kitchen ceil- 
ing. Nor the generous entertainment of more than one 
old hostess in little roadside public-houses, who, when 
I arrived at nightfall weary with travel, would have me 
sit at the end of the high-backed settle nearest the fire, 
or in the " neukin" under the great chimney, and bustle 
about with motherly kindness to get tea ready ; who 
before I had eaten the first pile of cakes would bring 

B 



2 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

a second, with earnest assurance that a " growing lad" 
could never eat too much; who talked so sympa- 
thisingly during the evening — I being at times the 
only guest — wondering much that I should be so far 
away from home: had I no friends? where was I 
going? and the like; who charged me only eighteen - 
pence for tea, bed, and breakfast, and once slily thrust 
into my pocket at parting a couple of cakes, which I 
did not discover till half way across a snow-drifted 
moor where no house was in sight for many miles. All 
this, and much more which one does not willingly 
forget, haunted my memory. 

The wild scenery of the fells, the tame agricultural 
region, and the smoky wapentakes, where commerce 
erects more steeples than religion, were traversed during 
my rambles. While wandering in the neighbourhood 
of Keighley, I had seen Charlotte Bronte's birthplace, 
long before any one dreamed that she would one day 
flash as a meteor upon the gaze of the "reading public." 
Kosebury Topping had become familiar to me in the 
landscapes of Cleveland, and now a desire possessed 
me to get on the top of that magnificent cone. In 
the villages round about its base I had shared the 
pepper-cake of Christmas-tide ; and falling in with the 
ancient custom prevalent along the eastern coast from 
Humber to Tyne, had eaten fried peas on Carlin Sun- 
day — Mid-Lent of the calendar — ere the discovery of 
that mineral wealth, now known to exist in such asto- 
nishing abundance, that whether the British coal-fields 
will last long enough or not to smelt all the ironstone 
of Cleveland, is no longer a question with a chief of 
geologists. I had mused in the ruin where Richard 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 3 

the Second was cruelly murdered, at Pontefract; had 
looked with proper surprise at the Dropping Well at 
Knaresborough, and into St. Robert's Cave, the depo- 
sitory of Eugene Aram's terrible secret; had walked 
into Wakefield, having scarcely outlived the fond 
belief that there the Vicar once dwelt with his family ; 
and when the guard pointed out the summits as the 
coach rolled past on the way from Skipton to Kirkby 
Lonsdale, had no misgivings as to the truth of the 
saying: 

" Penigent, Whernside, and Ingleborough, 
Are the three highest hills all England thorough." 

Unawares, in some instances, I had walked across 
battle-fields, memorable alike in the history of the 
county, and of the kingdom; where marauding Scots, 
dissolute Hainaulters, Plantagenets and Tudors, Cava- 
lier and Roundhead had rushed to the onslaught. 
Marston Moor awoke the proudest emotions; notwith- 
standing my schoolboy recollections of what David 
Hume had written thereupon; while Towton was 
something to wonder at, as imagination flew back to 
the time when 

" Palm Sunday chimes were chiming 

All gladsome thro' the air, 
And village churls and maidens 

Knelt in the church at pray'r ; 
When the Red Rose and the White Rose 

In furious battle reel'd ; 
And yeomen fought like barons, 

And barons died ere yield. 
When mingling with the snow-storm, 

The storm of arrows flew ; 
And York against proud Lancaster 

His ranks of spearmen threw. 
When thunder-like the uproar 

Outshook from either side, 

B2 



4 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

As hand to hand they battled 

From morn to eventide. 
When the river ran all gory, 

And in hillocks lay the dead, 
And seven and thirty thousand 

Fell for the White and Red. 
* * * * 

When o'er the Bar of Micklegate 

They changed each ghastly head, 
Set Lancaster upon the spikes 

Where York had bleached and bled. 

There still wild roses growing, 

Frail tokens of the fray — 
And the hedgeroAv green bear witness 

Of Towton field that day." 

Did the decrepid old shambles, roofed with paving- 
flags, still encumber the spacious market-place at 
Thirsk? Did the sexton at Ripon Minster still de- 
liver his anatomical lecture in the grim bonehouse, and 
did the morality of that sedate town still accord with 
the venerable adage, u as true steel as Ripon rowels?" 
Was York still famous for muffins, or Northallerton for 
quoits, cricket, and spell-and-nurr ? and was its beer as 
good as when Bacchus held a court somewhere within 
sight of the three Ridings, and asked one of his 
attendants where that new drink, " strong and mel- 
low," was to be found? and 

" The boon good fellow answered, ' I can tell 
North- Allerton in Yorkshire doth excel 
All England, nay all Europe, for strong ale ; 
If thither we adjourn we shall not fail 
To taste such humming stuff, as I dare say 
Your Highness never tasted to this day.' " 

Hence when the summer sun revived my migratory 
instinct, I inclined to ramble once more in Yorkshire. 
There would be no lack of the freshness of new scenes, 
for my former wanderings had not led me to the coast, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

nor to the finest of the old abbeys, those ruins of won- 
drous beauty, nor to the remote dales where crowding 
hills abound with the picturesque. Here was novelty 
enough, to say nothing of the people and their ways, 
and the manifold appliances and results of industry 
which so eminently distinguish the county, and the 
grand historical associations of the metropolitan city, 
once the " other Rome," of which the old rhymester 
says — 

" Let London still the just precedence claim, 
York ever shall be proud to be the next in fame." 

I was curious, moreover, to observe whether the 
peculiar dialect or the old habits were dying out quite 
as rapidly as some social and political economists would 
have us believe. 

Quaint old Fuller, among the many nuggets im- 
bedded in his pages, has one which implies that 
Yorkshire being the biggest is therefore the best 
county in England. You may take six from the 
other thirty -nine counties and put them together, and 
not make a territory so large as Yorkshire. The 
population of the county numbers nearly two millions. 
When within it you find the distances great from one 
extremity to the other, and become aware of the im- 
portance involved in mere dimensions. In no county 
have Briton, Roman, and Dane left more evident 
traces, or history more interesting waymarks. Speed 
says of it : " She is much bound to the singular love 
and motherly care of Nature, in placing her under so 
temperate a clime, that in every measure she is indif- 
ferently fruitful. If one part of her be stone, and 



6 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

a sandy barren ground, another is fertile and richly 
adorned with corn-fields. If you here find it naked, 
and destitute of woods, you shall see it there shadowed 
with forests full of trees, that have very thick bodies, 
sending forth many fruitful and profitable branches. 
If one place of it be moorish, miry, and unpleasant, 
another makes a free tender of delight, and presents 
itself to the eye full of beauty and contentive variety." 

Considering, furthermore, that for two years in 
succession I had seen the peasantry in parts of the 
north and south of Europe, and had come to the con- 
clusion (under correction, for my travel is brief) that 
the English labourer with his weekly wages, his cot- 
tage and garden, is better off than the peasant pro- 
prietor of Germany and Tyrol, — considering this, I 
wished to prove my conclusion, and therefore started 
hopefully for Yorkshire. 

And again, does not Emerson say " a wise traveller 
will naturally choose to visit the best of actual na- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER II. 

Estuary of the Humber — Sunk Island — Land versus Water — Dutch 
Phenomena — Cleathorpes — Grimsby — Paul — River Freaks — Mud — 
Stukeley and Drayton — Fluvial Parliament — Hull— The Thieves' 
Litany — Docks and Drainage — More Dutch Phenomena — The High 
Church — Thousands of Piles — The Citadel — The Cemetery— A 
Countryman's Voyage to China — An Aid to Macadam. 

As the Vivid steamed past the Spurn lighthouse, I 
looked curiously at the low sandy spit on which the 
tall red tower stands, scarcely as it seems above the 
level of the water, thinking that my first walk would 
perhaps lead thither. At sight of the Pharos, and of 
the broad estuary alive with vessels standing in, the 
Yorkshiremen on board felt their patriotism revive, 
and one might have fancied there was a richer twang- 
in their speech than had been perceptible in the lati- 
tude of London. A few who rubbed their hands and 
tried to look hearty, vowed that their future travels 
should not be on the sea. The Vivid is not a very 
sprightly boat, but enjoys or not, as the case may 
be, a reputation for safety, and for sleeping-cabins 
narrower and more stifling than any I ever crept into. 
But one must not expect too much when the charge 
for a voyage of twenty-six hours is only six and six- 
pence in the chief cabin. 



8 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE, 

Not without reason does old Camden remark of the 
Humber, " it is a common rendezvous for the greatest 
part of the rivers hereabouts/' for it is a noble estuary, 
notwithstanding that water and shore are alike muddy. 
It is nearly forty miles long, with a width of more 
than two miles down to about three leagues from the 
lighthouse, where it widens to six or seven miles, offer- 
ing a capacious entrance to the sea. The water has 
somewhat of an unctuous appearance, as if overcharged 
with contributions of the very fattest alluvium from 
all parts of Yorkshire. The results may be seen on 
the right, as we ascend. There spreads the broad level 
of Sunk Island, a noteworthy example of dry land 
produced by the co-operation of natural causes and 
human industry. The date of its first appearance 
above the water is not accurately known ; but in the 
reign of Charles II. it was described as three thousand 
five hundred acres of " drowned ground," of which 
seven acres were enclosed by embankments; and was 
let at five pounds a year. A hundred years later fif- 
teen hundred acres were under cultivation, producing 
a yearly rental of seven hundred pounds to the lessee ; 
but he, it is said, made but little profit, because of the 
waste and loss occasioned by failure of the banks and 
irruptions of the tides. In 1802 the island reverted 
to the Crown, and was relet on condition that all the 
salt marsh — nearly three thousand acres — which was 
" ripe for embankment," should be taken in, and that 
a church and proper houses should be built to replace 
the little chapel and five cottages which ministered as 
little to the edification as to the comfort of the occu- 
pants. In 1833 the lease once more fell in, and the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 9 

Woods and Forests, wisely ignoring the middlemen, 
let the lands directly to the " Sunk farmers," as they 
are called in the neighbourhood, and took upon them- 
selves the construction and maintenance of the banks. 
A good road was ^made, and bridges were built to 
connect the island with the main, and as the accumu- 
lations of alluvium still went on, another " intake " 
became possible in 1851, and now there are nearly 
7000 acres, comprising twenty-three farms, besides a 
few small holdings, worth more than 12,000/. of 
annual rent. It forms a parish of itself, and not a 
neglected one; for moral reclamation is cared for as 
well as territorial. The clergyman has a sufficient 
stipend; the parishioners supplemented the grants 
made by Government and the Council of Education, 
and have now a good schoolhouse and a competent 
schoolmaster. 

The island will continue to increase in extent and 
value as long as the same causes continue to operate ; 
and who shall set limits to them ? Already the area is 
greater than that described in the last report of the 
Woods and Forests, which comprehends only the por- 
tion protected by banks. The land when reclaimed is 
singularly fertile, and free from stones, and proves its 
quality in the course of three or four years, by pro- 
ducing spontaneously a rich crop of white clover. 
Another fact, interesting to naturalists, was mentioned 
by Mr. Oldham in a report read before the British 
Association, at their meeting in Hull. " When the 
land, or rather mud-bank, has nearly reached the usual 
surface elevation, the first vegetable life it exhibits is 
that of samphire, then of a very thin wiry grass, and 



10 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

after this some other varieties of marine grass; and 
when the surface is thus covered with vegetation, the 
land may at once be embanked ; but if it is enclosed 
from the tide before it obtains a green carpet, it may 
be for twenty years of but little value to agriculture, 
for scarcely anything will grow upon it." 

This is not the only place on the eastern coast where 
we may see artificial land, and banks, dikes, and other 
defences against the water such as are commonly sup- 
posed to be peculiar to the Netherlands. 

The windows of Cleathorpes twinkling afar in the 
morning sun, reveal the situation of a watering-place 
on the opposite shore much frequented by Lincolnshire 
folk. Beyond rises the tall and graceful tower of 
Grimsby Docks, serving at once as signal tower and 
reservoir of the water-power by which the cranes and 
other apparatus are worked, and ships laden and un- 
laden with marvellous celerity. These docks cover 
a hundred acres of what a few years ago was a great 
mud-flat, and are a favourable specimen of what can be 
accomplished by the overhasty enterprise of the present 
day. Grimsby on her side of the river now rivals 
Hull on the other, with the advantage of being nearer 
the sea, whereby some miles of navigation are avoided. 

Turning to the right again we pass Foul Holme 
Sand, a long narrow spit, covered at half-tide, which 
some day may become reclaimable. A little farther 
and there is the church of Paghill or Paul, standing 
on a low hill so completely isolated from the broken 
village to which it belongs, that the distich runs: 

" High Paul, and Low Paul, Paul, and Paul Holme, 
There was never a fair maid married in Paul town." 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 11 

The vessel urges her way onwards across swirls and 
eddies innumerable which betray the presence of shoals 
and the vigorous strife of opposing currents. The 
spring tides rise twenty-two feet, and rush in with a 
stream at five miles an hour, noisy, and at times dan- 
gerous, churning the mud and shifting it from one 
place to another, to the provocation of pilots. It is 
mostly above Hull that the changes take place, and 
there they are so sudden and rapid that a pilot may 
find the channel by which he had descended shifted to 
another part of the river on his return a few days after- 
wards. There also islands appear and disappear in a 
manner truly surprising, and in the alternate loss or 
gain of the shores may be witnessed the most capricious 
of phenomena. One example may suffice. A field of 
fourteen acres, above Ferriby, was reduced to less than 
four acres in twenty years, although the farmer during 
that time had constructed seven new banks for the 
defence of his land. 

Some idea of the enormous quantity of mud which 
enters the great river, may be formed from the fact that 
fifty thousand tons of mud have been dredged in one 
year from the docks and basins at Hull. The steam 
dredge employed in the work lifts fifty tons of mud in 
an hour, pours it into lighters which when laden drop 
down with the tide, and discharge their slimy burden in 
certain parts of the stream where, as is said, it cannot 
accumulate. 

Stukeley, who crossed the estuary during one of his 
itineraries, remarks: "Well may the Humber take its 
name from the noise it makes. My landlord, who is a 
sailor, says in a high wind 'tis incredibly great and 
terrible, like the crash and dashing together of ships." 



12 * A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

The learned antiquary alludes probably to trie bore, or 
ager as it is called, which rushes up the stream with 
so loud a hum that the popular mind seeks no other 
derivation for Humber. Professor Phillips, in his 
admirable book on Yorkshire, cites the Gaelic word 
Coma?", a confluence of two or more waters, as the 
origin; and Dr. Latham suggests that Humber may 
be the modified form of Aber or Inver. Drayton, in 
PolyoTbion, chants of a tragical derivation ; and as 
I take it for granted, amicable reader, that you do 
not wish to travel in a hurry, we will pause for a few 
minutes to listen to the debate of the rivers, wherein 
" thus mighty Humber speaks :" 

" My brave West Riding brooks, your king you need not scorn, 
Proud Naiades neither ye, North Riders that are born, 
My yellow- sanded Your, and thou my sister Swale 
That dancing come to Ouse, thro' many a dainty dale, 
Do greatly me enrich, clear Derwent driving down 
From Cleveland ; and thou Hull, that highly dost renown, 
Th' East Riding by thy rise, do homage to your king, 
And let the sea-nymphs thus of mighty Humber sing ; 
That full an hundred floods my wat'ry court maintain 
Which either of themselves, or in their greater's train 
Their tribute pay to me ; and for my princely name, 
From Humber king of Hunns, as anciently it came ; 
So still I stick to him : for from that Eastern king 
Once in me drown'd, as I my pedigree do bring : 
So his great name receives no prejudice thereby; 
For as he was a king, so know ye all that I 
Am king of all the floods, that North of Trent do flow ; 
Then let the idle world no more such cost bestow, 
Nor of the muddy Nile so great a wonder make, 
Though with her bellowing fall, she violently take 
The neighbouring people deaf; nor Ganges so much praise, 
That where he narrowest is, eight miles in broadness lays 
His bosom ; nor so much hereafter shall be spoke 
Of that (but lately found) Guianian Oronoque, 
Whose cataract a noise so horrible doth keep 
That it even Neptune frights : what flood comes to the deep, 
Than Humber that is heard more horribly to roar ? 
For when my Higre comes, I make my either shore 
Even tremble with the sound, that I afar do send." 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 13 

The view of Hull seen from the water is much more 
smoky than picturesque. Coming nearer we see the 
Cornwallis anchored off the citadel, looking as trim 
and earnest as one fancies an English seventy-four 
ought to look, and quite in keeping with the embra- 
sured walls through which guns are peeping on shore. 
The quay and landing-places exhibit multifarious signs 
of life, especially if your arrival occur when the great 
railway steam-ferry-boat is about to start. There is, 
however, something about Hull which inspires a feel- 
ing of melancholy. This was my third visit, and still 
the first impression prevailed. It may be the dead 
level, or the sleepy architecture, or the sombre colour, 
or a combination of the three, that touches the dismal 
key. " Memorable for mud and train oil " was what 
Etty always said of the town in which he served an 
apprenticeship of seven weary years; yet in his time 
there remained certain picturesque features which have 
since disappeared with the large fleet of Greenland 
whale-ships whereof the town was once so proud: — 
now migrated to Peterhead. However, we must not 
forget that Hull is the third port in the kingdom ; that 
nearly a hundred steamers arrive and depart at regular 
intervals from over sea, or coastwise, or from up the 
rivers; that of the 4000 tons of German yeast now 
annually imported, worth nearly 200,000/., it receives 
more than two-thirds; and that it was one of the first 
places to demonstrate the propulsion of vessels by the 
power of steam. Nor will we forget that we are in 
one of the towns formerly held in wholesome dread by 
evil-doers when recommendation to mercy was seldom 



] 4 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

heard of, as is testified by trie litany used by thieves in 
the olden time, thus irreverently phrased: 

" From Hull, HeU, and Halifax, 
Good Lord deliver us." 

Halifax, however, stood pre-eminent for sharp prac- 
tice; a thief in that parish had no chance of stealing 
twice, for if he stole to the value of thirteenpence-half- 
penny, he was forthwith beheaded. 

Andrew Marvell need not have been so severe upon 
the Dutch, considering how much there was in his 
native county similar in character and aspect to that 
which he satirised. You soon discover that this cha- 
racter still prevails. Is not the southern landing-place 
of the steam-ferry named New Holland ? and here in 
Hull, whichever way you look, you see masts, and are 
stopped by water or a bridge half open, or just going 
to open, whichever way you walk. It is somewhat 
puzzling at first; but a few minutes' survey from the 
top of the High Church affords an explanation. 

Following the line once occupied by the old fortifi- 
cations — the walls by which Parliament baffled the 
king — the docks form a continuous water-communi- 
cation from the river Hull on one side to the Hum- 
ber on the other, so that a considerable portion of the 
town has become an island, and the sight of masts 
and pennons in all directions, some slowly moving, 
is accounted for. The opening of the Junction 
Dock in 1829, whereby the communication was com- 
pleted, was celebrated among other incidents by a 
steamer making the entire circuit of the insular por- 
tion. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 15 

The amphibious Dutch-looking physiognomy thus 
produced is further assisted by the presence of nu- 
merous windmills in the outskirts, and the level- 
ness of the surrounding country. A hundred years 
ago, and the view across what is now cultivated fields 
would have comprehended as much water as land, if 
not more. Should a certain popular authoress ever 
publish her autobiography, she will, perhaps, tell us 
how that Mr. Stickney, her father, used when a boy 
to skate three or four miles to school over unreclaimed 
flats within sight of this church-tower of Hull, now 
rich in grass and grain. Only by a system of drainage 
and embankment on a great scale, and a careful main- 
tenance, has the reclamation of this and other parts of 
Holderness been accomplished. Taylor, the water- 
poet, who was here in 1632, records, 

" It yearly costs five hundred pounds besides 
To fence the towne from Hull and Humber's tydes, 
For stakes, for bavins, timber, stoues and piles, 
All which are brought by water many miles ; 
For workmen's labour, and a world of things, 
Which on the towne excessive charges brings." 

British liberty owes something to this superabun- 
dance of water. Hull was the first town in the king- 
dom to shut its gates against the king and declare for 
the people, and was in consequence besieged by Charles. 
In this strait, Sir John Hotham, the governor, caused 
the dikes to be cut and sluices drawn, and laid the 
whole neighbourhood under water, and kept the be- 
siegers completely at bay. The Royalists, to retaliate, 
dug trenches to divert the stream of fresh water that 
supplied the town, — a means of annoyance to which 
Hull, from its situation, was always liable. In the good 



16 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

old times, when the neighbouring villagers had any 
cause of quarrel with the townsfolk, they used to throw 
carrion and other abominations into the channel, or let 
in the salt-water, nor would they desist until warned 
by one of the popes in an admonitory letter. 

The church itself, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is 
a handsome specimen of florid Gothic, dating from the 
reign of Edward II. You will perhaps wish that the 
effect of the light tall columns, rising to the blue 
panelled roof, were not weakened by the somewhat 
cold and bare aspect of the interior. If you are 
curious about bells, there are inscriptions to be deci- 
phered on some of those that hang in the tower ; and 
in the belfry you may see mysterious tables hanging 
on the wall of " grandsire bobs," and " grandsire 
tripples ;" things in which the ringers take pride, but 
as unintelligible to the uninitiated as Babylonish 
writing. There, too, hangs the ringers' code of laws, 
and a queer code it is ! One of the articles runs : — 
" Every Person who shall Ring any Bell with his Hat or 
Spurs on, shall Forfeit and Pay Sixpence, for the Use of 
the Ringers." And the same fine is levied from " any 
Person who shall have Read Any of these Orders with 
his Hat upon his Head;" from which, and the charac- 
teristic touches in the other " orders," you will very 
likely come to some strange conclusions respecting the 
fraternity of ringers. 

The market-place is in the main street, where a gilt 
equestrian statue of William III. looks down on stalls 
of fruit, fish, and seaweed, and the moving crowd of 
townsfolk and sailors. By the side of the Humber 
dock rises the Wilberforce monument, a tall column, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 17 

bearing on its capital a statue of the renowned advo- 
cate of the negroes. And when you have looked at 
these and at the hospital, and walked through the gar- 
rison, you will have visited nearly all that is monu- 
mental in Hull. 

At low water, the little river Hull is a perfect repre- 
sentation of a very muddy ditch. While crossing the 
ferry to the citadel, the old boatman told me he could 
remember when every high tide flowed up into the 
streets of the town, but the new works for the docks 
now kept the water out. Hundreds of piles were 
driven into the sandy bank to establish a firm founda- 
tion for the massive walls, quays, and abutments. At 
the time when timber rose to an enormous price in 
consequence of Napoleon's continental blockade, the 
piles of the coffer-dam which had been buried seven 
years, were pulled up and sold for more than their 
original cost. Government gave the site of some old 
military works and 10,0007. towards the formation of 
the first dock, on condition that it should be made 
deep enough to receive ships of fifty guns. 

In records of the reign of Henry VIII. there ap- 
pears — " Item : the Kinges Ma'tes house to be made 
to serve as a Sitidell and a speciall kepe of the hole 
town." The present citadel has an antiquated look, 
and quiet withal, for the whole garrison, at the time I 
walked through it, numbered only twenty-five artil- 
lerymen. Judging from my own experience, one 
part of the sergeant's duty is to shout at inquisitive 
strangers who get up on the battery to look through 
an embrasure, and the more vehemently as they feign 
not to hear till their curiosity is satisfied. There is 

C 



18 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 

room in the magazines for twenty thousand stand of 
arms, and ordnance stores for a dozen ships of the line. 
A ditch fed from the Hull completely separates the 
fortifications from the neighbouring ship-yards. 

Half a day's exploration led me to the conclusion 
that the most cheerful quarter of Hull is the cemetery. 
I was sitting there on a grassy bank enjoying the 
breeze, when a countryman came up who perhaps felt 
lonely, for he sat down by my side, and in less than a 
minute became autobiographical. He was a village 
carpenter, " come forty mile out of Lincolnshire " for 
the benefit of his health ; had been waiting three days 
for his brother's ship, in which he meant to take a 
voyage to China, and feeling dull walked every day to 
the cemetery ; for, he said, " It's the pleasantest place 
I can find about the town." I suggested reading as a 
relief; but he " couldn't make much out o' readin' — 
'ud rather work the jack-plane all day than read." 
The long voyage to China appeared to offer so good 
an opportunity for improving himself in this particular, 
that I urged him to take a few books on board, and 
gave an assurance that one hour's study every day 
would enable him to read with pleasure by the time 
he returned. 

66 Oh, but we be on'y three days a-going," he 
answered. 

I had played the part of an adviser to no purpose, 
for it appeared, on further questioning, that his brother's 
ship was a small sloop trading to some port beyond 
the North Sea about three days distant; he did not 
know where it was, but was sure his brother called it 
China. I mentioned the names of all the ports I 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 19 

could think of to discover the real one if possible, but 
in vain; nor have I yet found one that has the sound 
of China. 

One thing I saw on my way back to the town, 
which London — so apt to be self-conceited — might 
adopt with signal advantage. It was a huge iron 
roller drawn by horses up and down a newly-mac- 
adamised road. Under the treatment of the ponderous 
cylinder, the broken stone, combined with a sprinkling 
of asphalte, is reduced to a firm and level surface, over 
which vehicles travel without any of that distressing 
labour and loss of time and temper so often witnessed 
in the metropolis, where a thousand pair of wheels 
produce less solidity in a week than the roller would 
in a day ; especially on the spongy roads presided over 
by St. Pancras. 

Late in the evening, while walking about the streets, 
even in the principal thoroughfares, I saw evidences 
enough of — to use a mild adjective — an unpolished 
population. The northern characteristics were strongly 
marked. 



C2 



20 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER III. 

A Railway Trip — More Land Reclamation — Hedon — Historical Recol- 
lections — Burstwick — The Earls of Albemarle— Keyingham — The 
Duke of York — Winestead — Andrew Marvell's Birthplace — A 
Glimpse of the Patriot — Patrmgton — A Church to be proud of — The 
Hildyard Arms— Feminine Paper-hangers — "Walk to Spurn — Talk 
with a Painter — Welwick — Yellow Ochre and Cleanliness — Skeffling 
— Humber Bank — Miles of Mud — Kilnsea — Burstall Garth — The 
Greedy Sea — The Sandbank — A Lost Town, Ravenser Odd — A Remi- 
niscence from Shakspeare — The Spurn Lighthouse — Withernsea — 
wthorne — Sister Churches — The Ghastly Churchyard — A Retort 
for a Fool — A Word for Philologists. 

By the first train on the morrow I started for Pa- 
trington. The windmills on the outskirts of the town 
were soon left behind, and away we went between the 
thick hedgerows and across the teeming fields, which, 
intersected by broad, deep drains, and grazed by sleek 
cattle, exhibit at once to your eye the peculiarities of 
Holderness. All along between the railway and the 
river there are thousands of acres, formerly called the 
" out-marshes," which have been reclaimed, and now 
yield wonderful crops of oats. After the principal 
bank has been constructed, the tide is let in under 
proper control to a depth of from three to five feet, 
and is left undisturbed until all the mud held in sus- 
pension is deposited. The impoverished flood is then 
discharged through the sluices, and in due time, after 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 21 

the first lias stiffened, a fresh flow is admitted. By 
this process of u warping," as it is called, three or four 
feet of mud will be thrown down in three years, 
covering the original coarse, sour surface with one 
abounding in the elements of fertility. Far inland, 
even up the Trent, and around the head of the Hum- 
ber within reach of the tide, the farmers have re- 
course to warping, and not unfrequently prefer a fresh 
layer of mud to all other fertilisers. 

About every two miles we stop at a station, and at 
each there is something to be noted and remembered. 
Hedon, a dull decayed town, now two miles from the 
river, once the commercial rival of Hull, has something 
still to be proud of in its noble church, " the pride of 
Holderness." Here, too, within a fence, stands the 
ancient cross, which, after several removals, as the sea 
devoured its original site — a royal adventurer's land- 
ing-place — found here a permanent station. At Burst- 
wick, two miles farther, lay the estates, the caput 
baronice, of the renowned Earls of Albemarle. A few 
minutes more and another stop reminds us of Keying- 
ham Bridge, where a party of the men of Holderness 
opposed the passage of Edward IV. with his three 
hundred Flemings, some carrying strange fire-weapons, 
until he replied to their resolute question that he had 
only come to claim his dukedom of York. A " duke- 
dom large enough" for a wise man. And, as tradition 
tells, Keyingham church was the scene of a miracle in 
1392, when all the doors were split by a lightning- 
stroke, and the tomb of Master Philip Ingleberd, 
formerly rector, sweated a sweetly-scented oil, perhaps 
out of gratitude to the patron saint for the escape of 



22 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

thirteen men who fell all at once with the ladder 
while seeking to put out the fire in the steeple, and 
came to no harm. Then Winestead, which was, if 
the parish-register may be believed, the birthplace of 
Andrew Marvell — not Hull, as is commonly reported 
of the incorruptible Yorkshireman. His father was 
rector here, but removed to Hull during the poet's 
infancy, which may account for the error. The font 
in which he was christened having fallen into neglect, 
was used as a horse-trough, until some good antiquary 
removed it into the grounds of Mr. Owst, at Keying- 
ham, where it remains safe among other relics. Andrew 
represented Hull in parliament for twenty years, and 
was the last member who, according to old usage, re- 
ceived payment for his services. One's thought kindles 
in thinking of him here at this quiet village, as the 
friend of Milton, like him using his gifts manfully and 
successfully in defence of the Englishman's birthright. 
What a happy little glimpse we get of him in the 
lines — 

" Climb at court for me that will — 
Tottering favour's pinnacle ; 
All I seek is to lie still, 
Settled in some secret nest, 
In calm leisure let me rest, 
And far off the public stage, 
Pass away my silent age. 
Thus, when without noise, unknown, 
I have lived out all my span, 
I shall die without a groan, 
An old honest countryman." 

Then Patrington — erst Patrick's-town — one of those 
simple-looking places which contrast agreeably with 
towns sophisticated by the clamour and bustle of trade; 
and although a few gas-lamps tell of innovation, a 



A MONTH IN YOEKSHIEE. 23 

market not more than once a fortnight upholds the 
authority of ancient usage. You see nearly the whole 
of the town at once : a long, wide, quiet street, termi- 
nated by a graceful spire, so graceful, indeed, that it 
will allure you at once to the church from which it 
springs; and what a feast for the eye awaits you! 
Truly the " pride of Holderness" is not monopolised 
by Hedon. The style is that which prevailed in the 
reign of Edward II., and is harmonious throughout, 
from weather-cock to door-sill. You will walk round 
it again and again, admiring the beauty of its design 
and proportion, pausing oft to contemplate the curious 
carvings, and the octagonal spire springing lightly from 
flying buttresses to a height of one hundred and ninety 
feet. The gurgoyles exhibit strange conceits : chiselled 
to represent a fiddler — a bagpiper — a man holding a 
pig — a fiend griping a terrified sinner — a lion thrust- 
ing his tongue out — and others equally incongruous. 
How I wished the architect would come to life for an 
hour to tell me what he meant by them, and by cer- 
tain full-length figures carved on the buttresses, which 
accord so little with our modern sense of decency, 
much less with the character of a religious house ! 
Inside you find a corresponding lightness and grace- 
fulness, and similarly relieved by a sprinkling of 
monsters. The east or "Ladye aisle" contains three 
chantry chapels ; the u Easter sepulchre" is a rare 
specimen of the sculptor's art, and the font hewn from 
a single block of granite displays touches of a master 
hand. St. Patrick's church at Patrington is an edifice 
to linger in ; an example of beauty in architecture in 
itself worth a journey to Yorkshire. 



24 A MOXTH IJST YORKSHIRE. 

There are relics, too, of an earlier age: embank- 
ments discovered some feet below the present surface, 
fragments of buildings, an altar, and other objects of 
especial interest to the antiquary, for they mark Pa- 
trington as the site of a Roman station. An impor- 
tant station, if the supposition be correct that this was 
the Praetorium of Antoninus — the place where some 
of the legions disembarked to subjugate the Brigantes. 

To eat breakfast under the sign of the Hildyard 
Arms — a name, by the way, which preserves in a 
modified form the old Saxon Hildegarde — seemed like 
connecting one's self with remote antiquity. The 
ancestors of the Hildyards were here before the Con- 
quest. One of the family, Sir Christopher, is comme- 
morated by a handsome monument in Winestead 
church. The landlord, willing to entertain in more 
ways than one, talked of the improvements that had 
taken place within his remembrance. The railway was 
not one of them, for it took away trade from the town, 
and deadened the market. Visitors were but few, and 
most of those who came wondered at seeing so beauti- 
ful a church in such an out-of-the-way place. He could 
show me a garden near the churchyard which was said 
to be the spot where the building-stone was landed 
from boats; but the water had sunk away hundreds of 
years ago. Patrington haven — a creek running up 
from the Humber — had retreated from the town, and, 
since the reclamation of Sunk Island, required frequent 
dredging to clear it of mud. The farmers in the 
neighbourhood were very well content with the crops 
now yielded by the land. In 1854 some of them 
reaped u most wonderful crops." 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 25 

I had seen a woman painting her door-posts, and 
asked him whether that was recognised as women's 
work in Patrington. " Sure/' he answered, " all over 
the country, too. "Women do the whitewashing, and 
painting, ay, and the paper-hanging. Look at this 
room, now ! My daughter put that up." 

I did look, and saw that the pattern on the walls 
sloped two or three inches from the perpendicular, 
whereby opposite sides of the room appeared to be 
leaning in contrary directions. However, I said nothing 
to disparage the damsel's merits. 

From Patrington to Spurn the distance is thirteen 
miles. Hoping to walk thither and back in the day, 
I snapped the thread of the landlord's talk, and set out 
for the lighthouse. Presently I overtook a man, and 
we had not walked half a mile together before I knew 
that he was a master painter in a small way at Pa- 
trington, now going to paper a room at Skeffling, a 
village five miles ofT. To hear that he would get only 
sixpence a piece for the hanging surprised me, for I 
thought that nowhere out of London would any one 
be silly enough to hang paper for a halfpenny a yard. 

"You see," he rejoined, "there's three in the trade 
at Patrington, and then 'tis only the bettermost rooms 
that we gets to do. The women does ail the rest, and 
the painting besides. That's where it is. But 'tain't 
such a very bad job as I be going to. They finds 
their own paste, and there's nine pieces to hang : that'll 
give me four and sixpence ; and then I shall get my 
dinner, and my tea too, if I don't finish too soon. So 
it'll be a pretty fair day's work." And yet the chances 



26 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

were that he would have to wait six months for pay- 
ment. 

We passed through Welwick — place of wells — a 
small, clean village, with a small, squat church, with 
carvings sadly mutilated on the outside, and inside, a 
handsome tomb. At Plowland, near this, lived the 
Wrights, confederates in the Gunpowder Plot. Nearly 
all the cottages are models of cleanliness ; the door-sill 
and step washed with yellow ochre, and here and there 
you see through the open door that the walls of the 
room inside are papered, and the little pictures and 
simple ornaments all in keeping. You will take plea- 
sure in these indications, and perhaps believe them to 
be the result of an affection for cleanliness. The walls 
of some of the houses and farm-yards are built of 
pebbles — "sea-cobbles," as they are called — placed 
zigzag-wise, with a novel and pretty effect; and the 
examples multiply as we get nearer the sea, where 
they may be seen in the walls of the churches. 

At SkeffTing the painter turned into a farm-house 
which looked comfortably hospitable enough to put 
him at ease regarding his dinner, and as if it had little 
need to take six months' credit for four and sixpence, 
while I turned from the high road into a track leading 
past the church — which, by the way, has architectural 
features worth examination — to the coarse and swarthy 
flats where the distant view is hidden by a great 
embankment that runs along their margin for miles. 
Once on the top of this " Humber bank," I met a 
lusty breeze sweeping in from the sea, and had before 
me a singular prospect — the bank itself stretching 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 27 

far as eye can see in a straight line to the east and 
west, covered with coarse grass and patches of gray, 
thistle-like sea-holly — Eryngo maritima. Its outer slope 
is loose sand falling away to the damp line left by the 
tide, beyond which all is mud — a great brown expanse 
outspread for miles. The tide being at its lowest, only 
the tops of the masts of small vessels are to be seen, 
moving, as it seems, mysteriously: the river itself is 
hardly discernible. In places the mud lies smooth and 
slimy; in others thickly rippled, or tossed into billows, 
as if the water had stamped thereon an impression 
of all its moods. Fishermen wade across it in huge 
boots from their boats to the firm beach, and dig down 
through it two or three feet to find firm holding- 
ground for their anchors. 

Yonder rises the lighthouse surprisingly far, as it 
seems, to seaward, at times half hidden by a thin, 
creeping haze. And from Spurn to Sunk Island this 
whole northern shore is of the same brown, monotonous 
aspect. A desert, where the only living things are a 
few sea-birds, wheeling and darting rapidly, their white 
wings flashing by contrast with the sad-coloured shore. 

I walked along the top of the bank to Kilnsea, de- 
ceived continually in my estimate of distance by the 
long dead level. Here and there a drain pierces the 
bank, and reappears on the outer side as a raised sewer, 
with its outlet beyond high-water mark ; and these 
constructions, as well as the waifs and strays — old 
baskets and dead seagulls — cheat the eye strangely as 
to their magnitude when first seen. At times, after a 
lashing storm has swept off a few acres of the mud, the 
soil beneath is found to be a mixture of peat and 



28 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

gravel, in which animal and vegetable remains and 
curious antiquities are imbedded. Now and then the 
relics are washed out, and show by their character 
that they once belonged to Burstall Priory, a religious 
house despoiled by the sea before King Harry began 
his Reformation. Burstall Garth, one of the pastures 
traversed by the bank, preserves its name: the build- 
ing itself has utterly disappeared. 

Suddenly a gap occurs in the bank, showing where 
the unruly tide has broken through. For some reason 
the mischief was not repaired, but a new bank was 
constructed of chalk and big pebbles about a stone's 
throw to the rear. A green, slimy pool still lies in the 
hollow between the two. 

The entertainment at the Crown and Anchor at 
Kilnsea by no means equals the expectations of a 
stranger who reads the host's aristocratic name — 
Metforth Tennison — over the door. I found the bread 
poor ; the cheese poorer ; the beer poorest, yet was 
content therewith, knowing that vicissitude is good for 
a man. The place itself has a special interest, telling, 
so to speak, its own history — a history of desolation. 
The wife, pointing to the road passing between the 
house and the beach, told me she remembered Kilnsea 
church standing at the seaward end of the village, 
with as broad a road between it and the edge of the 
cliff. But year by year, as from time immemorial the 
sea advanced, the road, fields, pastures, and cottages 
were undermined and melted away. Still the church 
stood, and though it trembled as the roaring waves 
smote the cliff beneath, and the wind howled around 
its unsheltered walls, service was held within it up to 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 29 

1823. In that year it began to yield, the walls cracked, 
the floor sank, the windows broke ; sea-birds flew in 
and out, shrieking in the storm, until, in 1826, one- 
half of the edifice tumbled into the sea, and the other 
half followed in 1831. The chief portion of the village 
stands on and near the cliff, but as the waste appears to 
be greater there than elsewhere, houses are abandoned 
year by year. In 1847 the Blue Bell Inn was five 
hundred and thirty-four yards from the shore ; of this 
quantity forty- three yards were lost in the next six 
years. Kilnsea exists, therefore, only as a diminished 
and diminishing parish, and in the few scattered cot- 
tages near the bank of the Humber. The old font 
was carried away from the church to SkefHing, where 
it is preserved in the garden of the parsonage. 

Her reminiscences ended, the good woman talked of 
the rough walking that lay before me. It was a wild 
place out there, not often visited by strangers; but 
sometimes " wagon loads o' coontra foak cam' to see t' 
loights." At one time, as I have heard, a stage-coach 
used to do the journey for the gratification of the 
curious. 

A short distance beyond the Crown and Anchor 
stands a small lone cottage built of sea-cobbles, with a 
sandy garden and potato-plot in front, and a sandy 
field in which a thin, stunted crop of rye was making 
believe to grow. Once past this cottage, and all is a 
wild waste of sand, covered here and there with reedy 
grass, among which you now and then see a dusty 
pink convolvulus, struggling, as it were, to keep alive 
a speck of beauty amid the barrenness. Here, as old 
chronicles tell, the king once had " coningers," or 
rabbit warrens, and rabbits still burrow in the hillocks. 



30 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIEE. 

Presently, there is the wide open sea on your left, and 
you can mark the waves rushing up on either side, 
hissing and thundering against the low bank that 
keeps them apart. 

" A broad long sand in the shape of a spoon," is the 
description given of Spurn in a petition presented to 
parliament nearly two hundred years ago; and, if we 
suppose the spoon turned upside-down, it still answers. 
It narrows and sinks as it projects from the main shore 
for about two miles, and this part being the weakest 
and most easily shifted by the rapid currents, is 
strengthened every few yards by rows of stakes driven 
deeply in, and hurdle work. You see the effect in the 
smooth drifts accumulated in the spaces between the 
barriers, which only require to be planted with grass 
to become fixed. As it is, the walking is laborious : 
you sink ankle-deep and slide back at every step, 
unless you accept the alternative of walking within 
the wash of the advancing wave. For a long while 
the lighthouse appears to be as far off as ever. 

A little farther, and we are on a rugged embank- 
ment of chalk : the ground is low on each side, and a 
large pond rests in the hollow between us and the sea 
on the left, marking the spot where, a few years ago, 
the sea broke through and made a clean sweep all 
across the bank. Every tide washed it wider and 
deeper, until at last the fishing- vessels used it as a short 
cut in entering or departing from the river. The 
effect of the breach would, in time, had a low-water 
channel been established, have seriously endangered 
the shore of the estuary, besides threatening destruc- 
tion to the site of the lighthouse. As speedily, there- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 31 

fore, as wind and weather would permit, piles and 
stakes were driven in, and the gap was filled up with 
big lumps of chalk brought from the quarry at Barton, 
forming an embankment sloped on both sides, to render 
the shock of the waves as harmless as possible. The 
trucks, rails, and sleepers with which the work had 
been accomplished were still lying on the sand await- 
ing removal. Henceforth measures of precaution will 
be taken in time, for a conservator of the river has been 
appointed. 

The depth of the bay formed by the spoon appears 
to increase more and more each time you look back. 
How vast is the curve between this bank of chalk and 
the point where we struck the shore from Skeffling ! 
The far- spreading sands — or rather mud — are known 
as the Trinity Dry Sands. At this moment they are 
disappearing beneath the rising tide, and you can 
easily see what thousands of acres might be reclaimed 
were a barrier erected to keep out the water. u Go- 
vernment have been talking o' doing of it for years," 
said a fisherman to whom I talked at Kilnsea, " but 
'tain't begun yet." 

Desolate as is now the scene, it was once enlivened 
by the dwellings of men and the stir of commerce. Off 
the spot where we stand there lay, five hundred years 
ago, a low islet, accessible by a flat ridge of sand and 
yellow pebbles, known as Ravenser Odd, or Ravens- 
rode, as some write it. u Situate at the entry of the 
sea," it was a port regarded with envy and fear by the 
merchants of Grimsby and Hull, for its pilots were 
skilful, and its traders enterprising. For a time it 
flourished ; but while the rival Roses wasted the realm, 



32 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

the sea crept nearer, and at length, after an existence 
of a century and a half, distinctly traceable in ancient 
records and old books, a high tide, enraged by a storm, 
ended the history of Ravenser Odd with a Tearful 
catastrophe. A gravelly bank, running outwards, still 
discoverable by excavation, is believed to be the 
foundation of the low, flat ridge of sand and yellow 
pebbles along which the folk of the little town passed 
daily to and fro; among them at times strange seamen 
and merchants from far-away lands, and cowled monks 
and friars pacing meekly on errands of the Church. 

And yonder, near the bottom of the curve, stood 
the town variously described as Ravenser, Ravenspurne, 
and Ravenspurg — a town that sent members to par- 
liament in the reigns of the first two Edwards, and 
was considered of sufficient importance to be invited 
to take part in the great councils held in London 
when the "kinges majestie" desired to know the naval 
forces of the kingdom. Now twice a day the tide 
rolls in triumphantly over its site. 

" The banish' d Bolingbroke repeals himself, 
And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd 
At Ravenspurg," 

writes Shakspeare, perpetuating alike the name of the 
place and the memory of the Duke of Lancaster's 
adventure, — an adventure brought before us in an in- 
vective by the fiery Hotspur, which I may, perhaps, 
be pardoned for introducing here : 

" My father, my uncle, and myself, 
Did give him that same royalty he wears : 
And, — when he was not six and twenty strong, 
Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, 
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, — 
My father gave him welcome to the shore : 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 33 

And, — when lie heard him swear a vow to God, 

He came but to be Duke of Lancaster, 

To sue his livery, and beg his peace ; 

With tears of innocency and terms of zeal, — 

My father in kind heart and pity mov'd, 

Swore him assistance, and perform'd it too. 

Now, when the lords and barons of the realm 

Perceiv'd Northumberland did lean to him, 

The more and less came in with cap and knee ; 

Met him in boroughs, cities, villages ; 

Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes, 

Laid gifts before him, profFer'd him their oaths, 

Gave him their heirs ; as pages follow'd him, 

Even at the heels, in golden multitudes. 

He presently, — as greatness knows itself, — 

Steps me a little higher than his vow 

Made to my father, while his blood was poor, 

Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg." 

The cross set up to commemorate the landing was 
shifted from place to place when endangered by the 
sea, and lastly to Hedon, where it still remains, as 
already mentioned. It was at the same port that 
Edward IV. landed, with an excuse plausible as that 
of the duke whose exploit be imitated. 

Though it be il naked" still and toilsome to walk on, 
the shore is by no means barren of interest. By-and-by 
we come to firm ground, mostly covered with thickly- 
matted grass; a great, irregular, oval mound, which 
represents the bowl of the spoon reversed. Near its 
centre is a fenced garden and a row of cottages — the 
residence of the life-boat crew. A little farther, on 
the summit of the ridge, stands the lighthouse, built 
by Smeaton in 1776, and at the water's edge on the 
inner side, the lower light. The principal tower is 
ninety feet in height, and from the gallery at the top 
you get an excellent bird's-eye view over sea and land. 
Most remarkable is the tongue of sand along which 
we have walked, now visible in its whole extent and 

D 



34 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

outline. It is lowest where the breach was made, and 
now that the tide has risen higher, the chalk embank- 
ment seems scarcely above the level of the water. 
Beyond that it broadens away to the shore of the 
estuary on one side, and the coast of Holderness on 
the other — low, sweeping lines which your eye follows 
for miles. By the waste of that coast the Spurn is 
maintained, and the Trinity Sands daily enlarged, and 
the meadows fattened along Ouse and Trent. First 
the lighter particles of the falling cliffs drift round by 
the set of the current, and gradually the heavier 
portions and pebbles follow, and the supply being 
inexhaustible, a phenomenon is produced similar to 
that of the Chesil Bank on the coast of Dorsetshire, 
except that here the pebbles are for the most part 
masked by sand. 

I looked northwards for Flamborough Head, but 
Dimlington Hill, which lies between, though not half 
the height, hides it completely. Beyond Dimlington 
lies Withernsea, a small watering-place, the terminus 
of the Hull and Holderness Railway, to which the 
natives of the melancholy town betake themselves for 
health and recreation, tempted by a quadrille band and 
cheap season-tickets. Adjoining Withernsea is all that 
remains of Owthorne, a village which has shared the 
doom of Kilnsea. The churches at the two places were 
known as " sister churches ;" that at Withernsea yet 
stands in ruins ; but Owthorne church was swept into 
the sea within the memory of persons now living. The 
story runs that two sisters living there, each on her 
manor, in the good old times, began to build a church 
for the glory of God and the good of their own souls, 



A MONTH m YORKSHIKE. 35 

and the work went on prosperously until a quarrel 
arose between them on the question of spire or tower. 
Neither would yield.. At length a holy monk sug- 
gested that each sister should build a church on her 
own manor ; the suggestion was approved, and for long 
years the Sister Churches resounded with the rustic 
voice of prayer and praise, and offered a fair day-mark 
to the mariner. 

But, as of old, the devouring sea rushed higher and 
higher upon the land, and the cliff, sapped and under- 
mined, fell, and with it the church of Owthorne. In 
1786, the edge of the burial-ground first began to fail; 
the church itself was not touched till thirty years later. 
It was a mournful sight to see the riven churchyard, 
and skeletons and broken coffins sticking out from the 
new clh% and bones, skulls, and fragments of long- 
buried wood strewn on the beach. One of the coffins 
washed out from a vault under the east end of the 
church contained an embalmed corpse, the back of the 
scalp still bearing the grey hairs of one who had been 
the village pastor. The eyes of the villagers were 
shocked by these ghastly relics of mortality tossed 
rudely forth to the light of day; and aged folk who 
tottered down to see the havoc, wept as by some re- 
membered token they recognised a relative or friend 
of bygone years, whom they had followed to the 
grave — the resting-place of the dead, as they trusted, 
till the end of time. In some places bodies still clad in 
naval attire, with bright- coloured silk kerchiefs round 
the neck, were unearthed, as if the sea were eager to 
reclaim the shipwrecked sailors whom it had in former 
time flung dead upon the shore. 

d2 



36 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

But, to return to the lighthouse. According to 
Smeaton's survey this extremity of the spoon compre- 
hends ninety-eight acres. It slopes gently to the sea, 
and is somewhat altered in outline by every gale. At 
the time of my visit, rows of piles were being driven 
in, and barriers of chalk erected, to secure the 
ground on the outer side between the tower and the 
sea; and a new row of cottages for the life-boat crew, 
built nearer to the side where most wrecks occur than 
the old row, was nearly finished. Beyond, towards 
the point, stands a public-house, in what seems a dan- 
gerous situation, close to the water. There was once 
a garden between it and the sea; now the spray dashes 
into the rear of the house ; for the wall and one-half of 
the hindermost room have disappeared along with the 
garden, and the hostess contents herself with the rooms 
in front, fondly hoping they will last her time. She 
has but few guests now, and talks with regret of the 
change since the digging of ballast was forbidden on 
the Spurn. Then trade was good, for the diggers were 
numerous and thirsty. That ballast-digging should 
ever have been permitted in so unstable a spot argues 
a great want of forethought somewhere. 

The paved enclosure around the tower is kept scru- 
pulously clean, for the rain which falls thereon and flows 
into the cistern beneath is the only drinkable water 
to be had." " It never fails," said the keeper, " but in 
some seasons acquires a stale flavour." He was formerly 
at Flamborough, and although appointment to the 
Spurn was promotion, he did not like it so well. It 
was so lonesome; the rough, trackless way between, 
made the nearest village seem far off; now and then a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 37 

boat came across with visitors from Cleathorpes, a 
seven miles' trip ; there had been one that morning, but 
not often enough to break the monotony. And he 
could not get much diversion in reading, for the 
Trinity Board, he knew not why, had ceased to circu- 
late the lighthouse library. 

The lesser tower stands at the foot of the inner slope, 
where its base is covered by every tide. Its height is 
fifty feet, and the entrance, approached by a long 
wooden bridge, is far above reach of the water. This 
is the third tower erected on the same spot; the two 
which preceded it suffered so much damage from the 
sea that they had to be rebuilt. 

About the time that ambitious Bolingbroke landed, 
a good hermit, moved with pity by the number of 
wrecks, and the dangers that beset the mouth of the 
estuary, set up a light somewhere near Ravenser. But 
finding himself too poor to maintain it, he addressed a 
petition to the " wyse Commons of Parliament," for suc- 
cour, and not in vain. The mayor of Hull, with other 
citizens, were empowered " to make a toure to be up 
on daylight and a redy bekyn wheryn shall be light 
gevyng by nyght to alle the vesselx that comyn into 
the seid ryver of Humbre." 

In the seventeenth century, Mr. Justinian Angell, 
of London, obtained a license to build a lighthouse on 
the Spurn. It was an octagonal tower of brick, display- 
ing an open coal fire on the top, which in stormy 
weather was frequently blown quite out, when most 
wanted. Wrecks were continually taking place ; and 
it is only since Smeaton completed his tower, and the 
floating-light was established in the offing, and the 



38 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

channel was properly buoyed, that vessels can approach 
the Humber with safety by night as well as by day. 

It was full tide when I returned along the chalky 
embankment, and the light spray from the breakers 
sprinkled my cheek, giving me a playful intimation of 
what might be expected in a storm. 

I was passing a tilery near Welwick when a beery 
fellow, who sat in the little office with a jug before 
him and a pipe in his mouth, threw up the window and 
asked, in a gruff, insolent tone, u A say, guvner, did 
ye meet Father Mathew ?" 

"Yes." 

" What did he say to ye ?" 

" He told me I should see a fool at the tileworks." 

Down went the window with a hearty slam, and be- 
fore I was fifty yards away, the same voice rushed into 
the road and challenged me to go back and fight. And 
when the owner of the voice saw that the stranger took 
no heed thereof, he cried, till hidden by a bend in the 
road, " Yer nothin' but t' scram o 5 t' yerth ! — -yer 
nothin' but t' scram o' t' yerth !" 

Thinking scram might be the Yorkshire for scum, I 
made a note of it for the benefit of philologists, and 
kept on to Patrington, where I arrived in time for the 
last train to Hull, quite content with six-and-twenty 
miles for my first day's walk. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 39 



CHAPTER IV. 

Northern Manners — Cottinghain — The Romance of Baynard Castle — 
Beverley — Yorkshire Dialect — The Farmers' Breakfast — Glimpses of 
the Town — Antiquities and Constables — The Minster — Yellow Ochre 
—The Percy Shrine— The Murdered Earl— The Costly Funeral— 
The Sisters' Tomb— Rhyming Legend— The Fridstool— The Belfry. 

Journeying from Hull to Beverley by "market- 
train" on the morrow, I had ample proof, in the noisy 
talk of the crowded passengers, that Yorkshire dialect 
and its peculiar idioms are not " rapidly disappearing 
before the facilities for travel afforded by railways." 
Nor could I fail to notice what has before struck me, 
that taken class for class, the people north of Coventry 
exhibit a rudeness, not to say coarseness of manners, 
which is rarely seen south of that ancient city. In 
Staffordshire, within twenty miles of Birmingham, 
there are districts where baptism, marriage, and other 
moral and religious observances considered as essen- 
tials of Christianity, are as completely disregarded as 
among the heathen. In some parts of Lancashire and 
Yorkshire similar characteristics prevail; but rude 
manners do not necessarily imply loose morality. 
Generally speaking the rudeness is a safety-valve that 
lets off the faults or seeming faults of character ; and I 
for one prefer rudeness to that over-refinement pre- 
valent in Middlesex, where you may not call things by 



40 A MONTH m YORKSHIKE. 

tlieir right names, and where, as a consequence, the 
sense of what is fraudulent, and criminal, and wicked, 
has become weakened, because of the very mild and 
innocent words in which "good society" requires that 
dishonesty and sin should be spoken of. 

If we alight at Cottingham and take a walk in the 
neighbourhood we may discover the scene of a romantic 
incident. There stood Baynard Castle, a grand old 
feudal structure, the residence of Lord Wake. When 
Henry VIII. lay at Hull, he sent a messenger to an- 
nounce a royal visit to the castle, anticipating, no 
doubt, a loyal reception; but the lord instead of pride 
felt only alarm, for his wife, whom he loved truly, was 
very beautiful, and he feared for the consequences 
should the amorous monarch set eyes on her beauty. 
He resolved on a stratagem : gave instructions to his 
confidential steward; departed at dead of night with 
his wife ; and before morning nothing of the castle re- 
mained but a heap of smoking ruins. The king, on 
hearing of the fire, little suspecting the cause, gene- 
rously sent a gift of two thousand pounds, with friendly 
words, to mitigate the loss; but the wary lord having 
evaded the visit, refused also to receive the money. 
And now, after lapse of centuries, there is nothing left 
but traces of a moat and rampart, to show the way- 
farer where such an ardent sacrifice was made to true 
affection. 

Even among the farmers, at whose table I took 
breakfast at the Holderness Hotel, at Beverley, there 
was evidence that broad Yorkshire is not bad Dutch, 
as the proverb says : 

" Gooid bracle, hotter, and cheese, 
Is gooid Yorkshire, and gooid Friese." 



A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 41 

The farmers talked about horses, and, to ray surprise, 
they ate but daintily of the good things, the beef, ham, 
mutton, brawn, and other substantial fare that literally 
burdened the table. Not one played the part of a good 
trencherman, but trifled as if the victim of dinners 
fashionably late ; and still more to my surprise, when 
the conversation took a turn, they all spoke disdain- 
fully of walking. That sort of exercise was not at all 
to their liking. " I ha'n't walked four mile I don't 
know when," said one; and his fellows avowed them- 
selves similarly lazy. My intention to walk along the 
coast to the mouth of the Tees appeared to them 
a weak-minded project. 

Beverley has a staid, respectable aspect, as if aware 
of its claims to consideration. Many of the houses 
have an old-world look, and among them a searching 
eye will discover unmistakable bits of antiquity. A 
small columnar building in the market-place is called 
the market cross; beyond it is St. Mary's Church, a 
rare old specimen of architecture; and beyond that 
one of the old town gates, a heavy stone arch bestriding 
the street. At the other end of the town, screened by 
an ancient brick wall, you may see the house of the 
Black Friars — more venerable than picturesque — be- 
sides little glimpses of the middle ages on your strag- 
gling saunter thither. Among these are not a few 
of that sort of endowments w T hich give occasion for 
abuses, and perpetuate helplessness. And of noticeable 
peculiarities you will perhaps think that one might be 
beneficially imitated in other towns: A Constable 
Lives Here is a notification which you may read on 
sundry little boards, topped by a royal crown, nailed 
here and there over the doors. 



42 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

But the minster is the great attraction, rich in histo- 
rical associations and architectural beauty. The edifice, 
as it now appears, has all been built since the destruc- 
tion by fire, in 1138, of an older church that stood on 
the same spot. The style is diverse, a not uncommon 
characteristic of ancient churches : Early English at the 
east end, Decorated in the nave, and Perpendicular in 
the west front and some minor portions. This western 
front is considered a masterwork, for not one of its 
features is out of harmony with the others — a speci- 
men of the Perpendicular, so Rickman signifies, not 
less admirable than the west front of York Minster of 
the Decorated. The effect, indeed, is singularly striking 
as you approach it from a quiet back street. I found 
a seat in a favourable point of view, and sat till my eye 
was satisfied with the sight of graceful forms, multiplied 
carvings, the tracery and ornament from base to roof, 
and upwards, where the towers, two hundred feet in 
height, rose grandly against the bright blue sky. 

However much you may admire yellow ochre on 
door-steps, door-posts, and in the passages and on the 
stairs of dwelling-houses, you will think it out of place 
when used to hide the natural colour of the masonry in 
a noble church. For me, the effect of the interior was 
marred by the yellow mask of the great pillars. The 
eye expects repose and harmony, and finds itself cheated. 
Apart from this, the lofty proportions, the perspective 
of the aisles, the soaring arches, the streaming lights 
and tinted shadows, fail not in their power to charm. 
Your architect is a mighty magician. All the windows, 
as is believed, were once filled with stained glass, for 
the large east window was glazed in 1733 with the 
numerous fragments that remained after the destroyers 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 43 

of ecclesiastical art had perpetrated their mischief. 
The colours show the true old tone ; and the effect, 
after all, is not unpleasing. 

The Percy shrine on the north side of the choir is 
one of the monuments to which, after viewing the 
carved stalls and the altar screen, the sexton will call 
your special attention. It is a canopied tomb of ex- 
quisite workmanship, enriched with various carvings, 
figures of knights and angels, crockets and finials; 
marking the resting-place, as is supposed, of the Lady 
Idonea Clifford, wife of the second Lord Percy of 
Alnwick. The Percys played a conspicuous part in 
Yorkshire history. Another of the family, grandson 
of Hotspur, reposes, as is said, under a tomb in the 
north transept. He was not a warrior, but a prebend 
of Beverley. Then, at the east end, the Percy chapel, 
which has lost its beauty through mutilation, comme- 
morates Henry, the fourth Earl of Northumberland, 
who was massacred at his seat, Maiden Bower, near 
Topcliffe, in 1489. Authorized by Henry VIII. to 
answer the appeal of the leading men of his neighbour- 
hood against a tax which levied one-tenth of their 
property, by a declaration that not one penny would 
be abated, he delivered his message in terms so 
haughty and imperious, that the chiefs, losing patience, 
brought up their retainers, sacked the house, and 
murdered the earl. The corpse was buried here in the 
minster; and the funeral, which cost a sum equivalent 
to 10,000/. present value, is described as of surpassing 
magnificence. Among the numerous items set down 
in the bill of charges is twopence a piece for fourteen 
thousand " pore folk" at the burial. 

In the south aisle of the nave stands another cano- 



44 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

pied tomb, an altar tomb of elegant form, covered by 
a slab of Purbeck marble, which appears never to have 
had a word of inscription to tell in whose memory it 
was erected. Neither trace nor record: nothing but 
tradition, and Venerable Bede. St. John of Beverley 
had only to send a cruse of water into which he had 
dipped his finger to a sick person to effect a cure. He 
once restored the wife of Earl Puch, who lived at 
Bishop Burton, a few miles distant. The lady drank 
a draught of holy water, and recovered forthwith 
from a grievous sickness. She had two daughters 
w T ho, overawed by the miracle, entered the nunnery at 
Beverley, where they won a reputation for holiness 
and good works. It was they who gave the two pas- 
tures on which freemen of the town still graze their 
cattle. The rest of their story is told in an olden ballad. 
It was Christmas-eve, says the rhymer, the customary 
service had been performed in the chapel, the abbess 
and her nuns slowly retired to pursue their devotions 
apart in their cells, all save two, who lingered and 
went forth hand in hand after the others. Whither 
went they ? On the morrow they were missing ; 
and 

" The snow did melt, the Winter fled 
Before the gladsome Spring 
And flowers did bnd, the cuckoo piped, 
And merry birds did sing. 

" And Spring danced by, and crowned with boughs 
Came lusty Summer on : 
And the bells ring out, for 'tis the eve, 
The eve of blessed St. John. 

"But where bide they, the sisters twain? 
Have the holy sisters fled? 
And the abbess and all her nuns bewail'd 
The sisters twain for dead. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 4^5 

"Then go they forth in the eventide, 
In the cool and dusky hour ; 
And the abbess goes up the stair of stone 
High on the belfry tower. 

" Now Christ thee save ! thou sweet ladye, 
For on the roof-tree there, 
Like as in blessed trance y-rapt, 
She sees the sisters fair. 

" Whence come ye, daughters ? long astray : 
'Tis but an hour, they tell, 
Since we did chant the vesper hymn, 
And list the vesper bell. 

" Nay, daughters, nay ! 'tis months agone : 
Sweet mother, an hour we ween ; 
But we have been in heaven each one, 
And holy angels seen." 

A miracle ! cries the rhymer ; and he goes on to tell 
how that the nuns repair to the chapel and chant a 
hymn of praise, after which the two sisters, kneeling, 
entreat the abbess for her blessing, and no sooner has 
she pronounced Vade in pace, than drooping like 
two fair lilies, two pale corses sink to the floor. Then 
the bells break into a chime wondrously sweet, rung 
by no earthly hand ; and when the sisters are laid in 
the tomb, they suffer no decay. Years passed away, 
and still no change came over those lovely forms and 
angelic features : 

" And pilgrims came from all the land, 
And eke from oversea, 
To pray at the shrine of the sisters twain, 
And St. John of Beverley." 

Another noteworthy object is King Athelstan's 
Fridstool, or chair of peace; the centre of a sanctuary 
which extended a mile from the minster in all direc- 
tions. Any fugitive who could once sit therein was 
safe, whatever his crime. When Richard II. encamped 
at Beverley, on his way to Scotland, his half-brother, 



46 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

Sir John Holland, having aided in the atrocious mur- 
der of Lord Ralph Stafford, fled to the Fridstool, nor 
would he leave it until assured of the king's pardon. 
The chair, hewn from a single block of stone, is very 
primitive in form and appearance; and as devoid of 
beauty as some of the seats in the Soulages collection. 
Athelstan was a great benefactor to the church. You 
may see his effigy, and that of St. John, at the entrance 
to the choir and over a door in the south transept, 
where he is represented as handing a charter to the 
holy man, of which one of the privileges is recorded 
in old English characters: 

3tf« JFre make IE ®f)e 

&8 J)ert mag tijmtke or lEejf) mag see. 

Such a generous giver deserved to be held in 
honour, especially if the eye were to see from the 
height of the tower, to the top of which I now 
mounted by the narrow winding-stair. While stopping 
to take breath in the belfry, you will perhaps be 
amused by a table of ringers' laws, and a record of 
marvellous peals, the same in purport as those exhibited 
at Hull. You can take your time in the ascent, for 
sextons eschew climbing, at least in all the churches I 
visited in Yorkshire. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 47 



CHAPTER V. 

A Scotchman's Observations — The Prospect — The Anatomy of Beverley 
— Historical Associations — The Brigantes — The Druids — Austin's 
Stone — The Saxons — Coin and Paulinus — Down with Paganism — 
A great Baptism — St. John of Beverley — Athelstan and Brunan- 
burgh — The Sanctuary — The Conqueror — Archbishop Thurstan's 
Privileges — The Sacrilegious Mayor — Battle of the Standard — St. 
John's Miracles — Brigand Burgesses — Annual Football — Surround- 
ing Sites — Watton and Meaux — Etymologies — King Athelstan's 
Charter. 

u On my first coming to England I landed at Hull, 
whose scenery enraptured me. The extended flatness 
of surface — the tall trees loaded with foliage — the large 
fat cattle wading to the knees in rich pasture — all had 
the appearance of fairy-land fertility. I hastened to 
the top of the first steeple — thence to the summit of 
Beverley Minster, and wondered over the plain of 
verdure and rank luxury, without a heathy hill or 
barren rock, which lay before me. When, after being 
duly sated into dulness by the constant sight of this 
miserably flat country, I saw my old bare mountains 
again, my ravished mind struggled as if it would 
break through the prison of the body, and soar with 
the eagle to the summit of the Grampians. The Pent- 
land, Lomond, and Ochil hills seemed to have grown 
to an amazing size in my absence, and I remarked 



48 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

several peculiarities about them which I had never 
observed before." 

This passage occurs in the writings of a late Scottish 
author to whom I am indebted for some part of my 
mental culture. I quote it as an example of the 
different mood of mind in which the view from the 
top of the tower may be regarded. To one fresh from 
a town it is delightful. As you step on the leads and 
gaze around on what was once called " the Lowths," 
you are surprised by the apparently boundless expanse 
— a great champaign of verdure, far as eye can reach, 
except where, in the north-west, the wolds begin to 
upheave their purple undulations. The distance is 
forest-like : nearer the woods stand out as groves, belts, 
and clumps, with park-like openings between, and 
everywhere fields and hedgerows innumerable. How 
your eye feasts on the uninterrupted greenness, and 
follows the gleaming lines of road running off in all 
directions, and comes back at last to survey the town 
at the foot of the tower. 

Few towns will bear the inspection from above so 
well as Beverley. It is well built, and is as clean in 
the rear of the houses as in the streets. Looking from 
such a height, the yards and gardens appear dimi- 
nished, and the trim flower-beds, and leafy arbours, 
and pebbled paths, and angular plots, and a prevailing 
neatness reveal much in favour of the domestic virtues 
of the inhabitants. And the effect is heightened by 
the green spaces among the bright red roofs, and woods 
which straggle in patches into the town, whereby it 
retains somewhat of the sylvan aspect for which it was 
in former times especially remarkable. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 49 

Apart from its natural features, the region is rich in 
associations. The history of Beverley, an epitome of 
that of the whole county, tempts one to linger, if but 
for half an hour. It will not be time thrown away, 
for a glimpse of the past will not be without its in- 
fluence on our further wanderings. 

Here the territory of the Brigantes, which even the 
Bomans did not conquer till more than a hundred 
years after their landing in Kent, stretched across the 
island from sea to sea. Here, deep in the great forest, 
the Druids had one of their sacred groves, a temple of 
living oaks, for their mysterious worship and ruthless 
sacrifices. Hundreds of tumuli scattered over the 
country, entombing kysts, coffins, fragments of skele- 
tons, and rude pottery, and not less the names of 
streets and places, supply interesting testimony of their 
existence. Drewton, a neighbouring village, marks, 
as is said, the site of Druids' -town, where a stone 
about twelve feet in height yet standing was so much 
venerated by the natives, that Augustine stood upon it 
to preach, and erected a cross thereupon that the wor- 
shipper might learn to associate it with a purer faith. 
It is still known as Austin's Stone. 

The Saxon followed, and finding the territory hollow 
between the cliffs of the coast and the wolds, named 
it HoTi-deira-ness, whence the present Holderness. It 
was in the forest of Deira that the conference was held 
in presence of Edwin and Ethelburga, between the 
missionary Paulinus and Coifi, the high-priest of Odin ? 
on the contending claims of Christianity and Pagan- 
ism. The right prevailed; and Coifi, convinced by 
the arguments he had heard, seized a spear, and hurry- 



50 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

ing with newly-awakened zeal to the temple at God- 
manham, cursed his deity, and hurled the spear at the 
image with such fury that it remained quivering in 
the wall of the sacred edifice. The multitude looked 
on in amazement, waiting for some sign of high dis- 
pleasure at so outrageous a desecration. But no sign 
was given, and veering suddenly from dread to deri- 
sion, they tore down the temple, and destroyed the 
sacred emblems. Edwin^s timorous convictions were 
strengthened by the result, and so great was the throng 
of converts to the new faith, that, as is recorded, Pau- 
linus baptized more than ten thousand in one day in 
the Swale. According to tradition, the present church 
at Godmanham, nine miles distant, a very ancient 
edifice, was built from the ruins of the Pagan temple. 
St. John of Beverley was born at Harpham, a 
village near Driffield — Deirafeld — in 640. Diligent 
in his calling, and eminently learned and conscientious, 
he became Archbishop of York. In 700 he founded 
here an establishment of monks, canons, and nuns, 
and rebuilt or beautified the church, which had been 
erected in the second century ; and when, after thirty- 
three years of godly rule over his diocese, he laid 
aside the burden of authority, it was to the peaceful 
cloisters of Beverley that he retired. " He was edu- 
cated,"says Fuller, " under Theodorus the Grecian, 
and Archbishop of Canterbury, yet was he not so 
famous for his teacher as for his scholar, Venerable 
Bede, who wrote this John's life, which he hath so 
spiced with miracles, that it is of the hottest for a 
discreet man to digest into his belief." He died in 
721, and was buried in his favourite church, with a 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 51 

reputation for sanctity which eventually secured him a 
place in the calendar. 

Was it not to St. John of Beverley that Athelstan 
owed the victory at Brunanburgh, which made him 
sole monarch of Northumbria ? The fame of the 
"great battle" remains, while all knowledge of the 
site of Brunanburgh has utterly perished, unless, as is 
argued in the Proceedings of the Literary and His- 
torical Society of Liverpool, it w T as fought near Burn- 
ley, in Lancashire. It was celebrated alike in Anglo- 
Saxon song and history. Greater carnage of people 
slain by the edge of the sword, says the ancient chro- 
nicle, had never been seen in this island, since Angles 
and Saxons, mighty war-smiths, crossed the broad 
seas to Britain. Athelstan, in fulfilment of his vow, 
laid up his sword at the shrine of St. John, and added 
largely to the revenues and privileges of the church. 
A stone cross, erected on each of the four roads, a 
mile from the minster, marked the limits of the sanc- 
tuary which he conferred. One of these yet remains, 
but in a sadly mutilated condition. 

When the Conqueror came and laid the country 
waste from Humber to Tees, trampling it into a 
"horrible wilderness," he spared Beverley and the 
surrounding lands, yielding, as was believed, to the 
miraculous influence of the patron saint. One of his 
soldiers, who entered the town with hostile intent, be- 
came suddenly paralysed, and smitten with incurable 
disease ; and a captain falling, by accident as it 
seemed, from his horse, his head was turned com- 
pletely round by the shock. These were warnings not 

E 2 



52 A MONTH IN YORKSHIKE. 

to be disregarded; and Beverley remained a scene of 
fertile beauty amid the desolation. 

One of John's successors, Archbishop Thurstan, took 
pleasure also in fondling Beverley. He cut the canal, 
a mile in length, from the river Hull to the town : he 
gave to the inhabitants a charter of incorporation con- 
ferring similar privileges to those enjoyed by the 
citizens of York, whereby they were free from all fines 
and dues in England and Normandy; had the right 
to pontage — that is, a toll on all the barges and boats 
that passed under a bridge as w T ell as on the vehicles 
over it; and to worry debtors as rigorously as they 
chose, without fear of retaliation. In these anti- 
church-rate days it is surprising enough to read of the 
power exercised by an archbishop in the twelfth 
century. Thurstan had rule over the baronies of 
Beverley and five other places, with power to try and 
execute criminals, and punish thieves without appeal. 
In all the baronies the prisons were his; to him be- 
longed the gibbet, pillory, and cucking-stool in the 
towns; the assize of bread and beer; waifs and wrecks 
of the sea ; the right to u prises" in the river Hull, dili- 
gently enforced by his watchful coroners; besides park 
and free warren, and all his land released from suit 
and service. 

That taking of prises, by the way, was a standing 
cause of quarrel between the burghers of Hull and 
Beverley. The right to seize two casks of wine from 
every vessel of more than twenty tons burden that 
entered the river, one before, the other behind the 
mast, was a grievance too much akin to robbery to be 
borne with patience. The merchants, wise in their 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 53 

generation, tried to save their casks by discharging the 
cargoes into smaller vessels before entering the port; 
but the coroners detected the evasion, and took their 
prises all the same. Hence bitter quarrels; in which 
the Beverley ships, dropping down the stream to pur- 
sue their voyage, were many times barred out of the 
Humber by the men of Hull. Once, when the arch- 
bishop appeared at the port to defend his right, the 
mayor, losing temper, snatched the crosier from the 
dignitary's hand, and, using it as a weapon, actually 
spilt blood with the sacred instrument. 

Never was the saint's influence more triumphantly 
felt than when Thurstan's fiery eloquence roused the 
citizens of York to march against David of Scotland. 
The Scottish king, to support Maud's claim against 
Stephen, ravaged Northumbria with such ferocious 
devastation, that it seemed but a repetition of the 
Norman havoc, and provoked the Saxon part of the 
population to join in repelling the invader. After 
threatening York, David moved northwards, followed 
by the Yorkshire army which had rendezvoused at the 
castle of Thirsk. To inspire their patriotism, a great 
pole, topped by a crucifix, and hung with the standards 
of St. John of Beverley, St. Peter of York, and St. 
Wilfrid of Ripon, was mounted on wheels, and placed 
where every eye could behold it. The Scottish 
army was overtaken, three miles beyond Northallerton, 
on the 22nd of August, 1138: the king, seeing the 
threefold standard from afar, inquires of a deserter 
what it means; whereupon he replies, in the words of 
the ballad : 



54 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

" A mast of a ship it is so high, 
All bedeck'd with gold so gay : 
And on its top is a Holy Cross, 
That shines as bright as day. 

" Around it hang the holy banners 
Of many a blessed saint : 
St. Peter, and John of Beverley, 
And St. Wilfrid there they paint." 

The king begins to have misgivings, and rejoins: 

" Oh ! had I but yon Holy Rood 
That there so bright doth show, 
I would not care for yon English host, 
Nor the worst that they coiild do." 

But in vain : the Yorkshire blood was up, no quarter 
was given, and ten thousand Scotchmen bit the dust. 
So complete was the victory, that the oppressed Saxons 
boasted of it as an indemnity for their former sufferings ; 
and the Battle of the Standard remains memorable 
among the greatest battles of Yorkshire, and the 
Standard Hill among her historical places. 

Was it not the same St. John who afterwards ap- 
peared in full pontificals to Stephen, and warned him 
to stay his purpose of building a castle at Beverley? 
and was it not again his banner, saved from the fire 
when the town and minster were burnt in 1186, which 
rendered Edward I. victorious in his invasion of Scot- 
land ? Did not his tomb sweat blood on that famous 
day of Agincourt, and the rumour thereof bring 
Henry V. and his lovely Kate hither on a pilgrimage ? 

Then the chronicler tells us that one while the provost 
and burgesses, resolving to enlarge and beautify the 
minster, brought together the best workmen from all 
parts of England; and later, that the corporation re- 



A MONTH EST YORKSHIRE. 55 

paired the edifice with stones taken from the neigh- 
bouring abbey of Watton. And so bitter became the 
quarrels between Hull and Beverley, that some of the 
chief men encouraged the insurrectionary movements 
known as the Rising of the North and the Pilgrimage of 
Grace, with no other purpose than to damage their 
rivals. The burgesses of Beverley, not having the fear 
of the marshal before their eyes, were accused of unfair 
trading : of keeping two yard measures and two bushels: 
unlawfully long and big to buy with — unlawfully short 
and small to sell with. And when in process of time 
the trade of the town decayed, evil-minded persons 
looked on the change as a judgment. At present there 
is little of manufacture within it besides that of the 
implements which have made the name of Crosskill 
familiar to farmers. 

Some old customs lingered here obstinately. The 
cucking-stool was not abolished until 1750, which some 
think was a hundred years too soon. Ducking-stool- 
lane preserves its memory. And down to 1825, an 
annual match at football was played on the Sunday 
before the races, to which there gathered all the rabble 
of the town and adjacent villages, who for some years 
successfully resisted the putting down of what had be- 
come a nuisance. Instead of abolishing the game, it 
would have been better to change the day, and hold 
weekly football matches on the race-course. 

From the tower-top the eye takes in the site of 
Leckonfield, where the Percys had a castle ; of Watton 
Abbey, where an English Abelard and Heloise mourned 
and suffered; of. the scanty remains of Meaux Abbey, 
founded about 1140 by William le Gros, Earl of Albe- 



56 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

marie. Concerning this nobleman, we read that he 
had vowed a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but grew 
so fat as to be detained at home against his will. Feel- 
ing remorse, he consulted his confessor, who advised 
him to establish a convent of Cistercians. A monk 
from Fountains, eminent alike for piety and skill in 
architecture, was invited to choose a site. He selected 
a park-like tract commanding a view of the Humber. 
The earl, loving the place, bade him reconsider his 
choice ; but the monk, striking his staff into the ground, 
replied, " This place shall in future be called the door 
of life, the vineyard of heaven, and shall for ever be 
consecrated to relioion and the service of God." The 

o 

abbey was built and tenanted by cowls from Fountains, 
and flourished until floods and high tides wasted the 
lands, and the Reformation destroyed the house. 

But though one man may write a poem while " wait- 
ing on the bridge at Coventry," another may hardly, 
without presumption, write a long chapter on the top 
of a tower. Let me end, therefore, while descending, 
with a scrap of etymology. Beaver Lake, that is, the 
lake of floating islands, sacred to the Druids, is said by 
one learned scribe to be the origin of the name Bever- 
ley. Another finds it in the beavers that colonized 
the river Hull, with lea for a suffix, and point to an 
ancient seal, which represents St. John seated, resting 
his feet on a beaver. Did not the wise men of Camel- 
ford set up the figure of a camel on the top of their 
steeple as a weathercock, because their river winds 
very much, and camel is the aboriginal British word 
for crooked? Other scholars trace Beverley through 
Bevorlac, back to Pedwarllech — the four stones. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 57 

And here, by way of finish, are a few lines from 
Athelstan's charter : 

" Yat witen all yat ever been 
Yat yis charter heren and seen 
Yat I ye Bang Athelstan 
Has yaten and given to St. John 
Of Beverlike yat sai you 
Tol and theam yat wit ye now 
Sok and sake over al yat land 
Yat is given into his hand." 



58 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Great Drain — The Carrs — Submerged Forest — River Hull — Tick- 
ton — Routh — Tippling Rustics — A Cooler for Combatants — The 
Blind Fiddler — The Improvised Song — The Donkey Races — Speci- 
mens of Yorkshiremen — Good Wages — A Peep at Cottage Life — 
Ways and Means — A Paragraph for Bachelors — Hornsea Mere — The 
Abbots' Duel — Hornsea Church — The Marine Hotel. 

About a mile from the town on the road to Horn- 
sea, you cross one of the great Holderness drains, 
broad and deep enough for a canal, which, traversing 
the levels, falls into the sea at Barmston. It crosses 
the hollow lands known as " the Carrs," once an in- 
salubrious region of swamp and water covering the 
remains of an ancient forest. So deep was the water, 
that boats went from Beverley to Frothingham, and 
some of the farmers found more profit in navigating to 
and fro with smuggled merchandise concealed under 
loads of hay and barley than in cultivating their farms. 
For years a large swannery existed among the islands, 
and the "king's swanner" used to come down and 
hold his periodical courts. The number of submerged 
trees was almost incredible : pines sixty feet in length, 
intermingled with yew, alder, and other kinds, some 
standing as they grew, but the most leaning in all 
directions, or lying flat. Six hundred trees were 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 59 

taken from one fields and the labourers made good 
wages in digging them out at twopence a piece. Some 
of the wood was so sound that a speculator cut it up 
into walking-sticks. Generally, the upper layer con- 
sists of about two feet of peat, and beneath this the 
trees were found densely packed to a depth of twenty 
feet, and below these traces were met with in places of 
a former surface : the bottom of the hollow formed by 
the slope from the coast on one side, from the wolds 
on the other, to which Holderness owes its name. 
The completion of the drainage works in 1835 pro- 
duced a surprising change in the landscape; green 
fields succeeded to stagnant water; and the islands are 
now only discoverable by the "holm" which termi- 
nates the name of some of the farms. 

A little farther, and there is the river Hull, flowing 
clean and cheerful to the muddy Humber. Then 
comes Tickton, where, looking back from the swell in 
the road, you see a good sylvan picture — the towers of 
the minster rising grand and massy from what appears 
to be a great wood, backed by the dark undulations of 
the wolds. 

In the public-house at Routh, where I stayed to 
dine on bread-and-cheese, the only fare procurable, I 
found a dozen rustics anticipating their tippling hours 
with noisy revelry. The one next whom I sat became 
immediately communicative and confidential, and, tell- 
ing me they had had to turn out a quarrelsome com- 
panion, asked what was the best cure u for a lad as 
couldn't get a sup o' ale without wanting to fight." I 
replied, that a pail of cold water poured down the 
back was a certain remedy ; which so tickled his 



60 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIKE. 

fancy that he rose and made it known to the others, 
with uproarious applause. For his own part he burst 
every minute into a wild laugh, repeating, with a 
chuckle, " A bucket o' water !" 

There was one, however, of thoughtful and some- 
what melancholy countenance, who only smiled quietly, 
and sat looking apparently on the floor. " What's the 
matter, Massey?" cried my neighbour. 

" Nought. He's a fool that's no melancholy yance 
a day," came the reply, in the words of a Yorkshire 
proverb. 

" That's you, Tom ! Play us a tune, and I'll 
dance." 

" Some folk never get the cradle straws off their 
breech," came the ready retort with another proverb. 

"Just like 'n," said the other to me. "He's the 
wittiest man you ever see: always ready to answer, 
be 't squire or t' parson, as soon as look at 'n. He 
gave a taste to Sir Clifford hisself not long ago. He 
can make songs and sing 'em just whenever he likes. 
I shouldn't wunner if he's making one now. He's 
blind, ye see, and that makes 'n witty. We calls 'n 
Massey, but his name's Mercer — Tom Mercer. Sing 
us a song, Tom ! " 

True enough. Nature having denied sight to him 
of the melancholy visage, made it up with a rough and 
ready wit, and ability to improvise a song apt to the 
occasion. He took his fiddle from the bag and at- 
tempted to replace a broken string; but the knot 
having slipped two or three times, three or four of his 
companions offered their aid. The operation was, 
however, too delicate for clumsy fingers swollen with 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 61 

beer and rum, and as they all failed, I stepped for- 
ward, took the riddle in hand, and soon gave it back 
to the minstrel, who, after a few preliminary flourishes, 
interrupted by cries of " Now for 't ! " struck up a 
song. With a voice not unmusical, rhythm good, and 
rhyme passable, he rattled out a lively ditty on the 
incidents of the hour, introducing all his acquaintances 
by name, and with stinging comments on their pecu- 
liarities and weaknesses. The effect was heightened 
by his own grave demeanour, and the fixed grim smile 
on his face, while the others were kicking up their 
heels, and rolling off their seats with frantic laughter. 

" Didn't I tell ye so ! " broke in my neighbour, as 
he winced a little under a shaft unusually keen from 
the singer's quiver. 

I was quite ready to praise the song, which, indeed, 
was remarkable. Albert Smith does not chant about 
passing events more fluently than that blind fiddler 
caught up all the telling points of the hour. He 
touched upon the one who had been turned out, and 
on my hydropathic prescription, and sundry circum- 
stances which could only be understood by one on the 
spot. Without pause or hesitation, he rattled off a 
dozen stanzas, of which the last two may serve as a 
specimen : 

" Rebecca sits a shellin' peas, ye all may hear 'em pop : 
She knows who's comin' with a cart : he won't forget to stop : 
And Frank, and Jem, and lazy Mat, got past the time to think, ' 
With ginger-beer and rum have gone and muddled all their drink. 
With a fol lol, riddle, liddle, lol, lol, lol ! 

" Here's a genelman fro' Lunnon; 'tis well that he cam' doun; 
If he'd no coom ye rantin' lads would happen had no tune : 
Ye fumbled at the fiddle-strings : he screwed 'em tight and strong ; 
Success to Lunnon then I say, and so here ends my song. 
With a fol lol, riddle, liddle, lol, lol, lol!" 



62 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Lusty acclamations and a drink from every man's 
jug rewarded the fiddler, and a vigorous cry was set 
up for "The Donkey Races," another of his songs, 
which, as lazy Mat told me, " had been printed and 
sold by hundreds." The blind man, nothing loth, 
rattled off a lively prelude, and sang his song with 
telling effect. The race was supposed to be run by 
donkeys from all the towns and villages of the neigh- 
bourhood: from Patrington, Heden, Hull, Driffield, 
Beverley, and others, each possessed of a certain local 
peculiarity, the mention of which threw the company 
into ecstasies of merriment. And when the " donkey 
from York " was introduced along with his " sire 
Gravelcart " and his u dam Work," two of the guests 
flumped from their chairs to laugh more at ease on the 
floor. The fiddler seemed to enjoy the effect of his 
music; but his grim smile took no relief; the twinkle 
of the eye was wanting. He was now sure of his 
game, for the afternoon at least. 

While looking round on the party, I had little diffi- 
culty in discerning among them the three principal 
varieties of Yorkshiremen. There was the tall, broad- 
shouldered rustic, whose stalwart limbs, light gray or 
blue eyes, yellowish hair, and open features indicate 
the Saxon; there was the Scandinavian, less tall and 
big, with eyes, hair, and complexion dark, and an 
intention in the expression not perceptible in the 
Saxon face; and last, the Celt, short, swarthy, and 
Irish-looking. The first two appeared to me most 
numerous in the East and North Ridings, the last in 
the West. 

On the question of wages they were all content. 



A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 63 

Here and there a man got eighteen shillings a week ; 
but the general rate was fifteen shillings, or "nine 
shill'n's a week and our meat" (diet), as one expressed 
it. Whatever folk might do in the south, Yorkshire 
lads didn't mean to work for nothing, or to put up 
with scanty food. " We get beef and mutton to eat," 
said lazy Mat, " and plenty of it." 

The road continues between fat fields and pastures, 
skirts a park bordered by noble trees or tall planta- 
tions, in which the breeze lingers to play with the 
branches. Here and there a few cottages, or a hamlet, 
clean in-doors, and pretty out of doors,, with gay little 
flower-gardens. Frequent thunder-showers fell, and I 
was glad to shelter from the heaviest under a roof. 
Always the same cleanliness and signs of thrift, and 
manifest pleasure in a brief talk with the stranger. 
And always the same report about wages, and plenty 
of work for men and boys ; but a slowness to believe 
that sending a boy to school would be better than 
keeping him at work for five shillings a week. I got 
but few examples of reading, and those far from pro- 
mising, and could not help remembering how different 
my experiences had been the year before in Bohemia. 

One of the cottages in which I took shelter stands 
lonely in a little wood. The tenant, a young labourer, 
who had just come home from work, " not a bit sorry," 
as he said, "that 'twas Saturday afternoon," entered 
willingly into conversation, and made no secret of his 
circumstances. His testimony was also favourable as 
regards wages. He earned fifteen shillings a week, 
and didn't see any reason to complain of hard times, 
for he paid but three pounds a year for his cottage, 



64 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

which sum he recovered from his garden in vegetables 
and flowers, besides sundry little advantages which at 
times fall to the lot of rustics. He eat meat — beef or 
mutton — " pretty well every day," and was fully per- 
suaded that without enough of good food a man could 
not do a fair day's work. 

While we talked his wife was putting the finishing 
touch to the day's cleaning by washing the brick floor, 
and without making herself unclean or untidy, as many 
do. Her husband had shown himself no bad judge of 
rustic beauty when he chose her as his helpmate, and 
her good looks were repeated in their little daughter, 
who ran playfully about the room. I suggested that 
the evening, when one wished to sit quiet and com- 
fortable, was hardly the time to wet the floor. " I'd 
rather see it wet than mucky" (mooky, as he pro- 
nounced it), was the answer ; and neither husband nor 
wife was ready to believe that the ill-health too plainly 
observable among many cottagers' children arose from 
avoidable damp. To wash the floor in the morning, 
when no one had occasion to sit in the room, would be 
against all rule. 

" Stay a bit longer," said the young man, as I rose 
when the shower ceased ; " I like to hear ye talk." 

And I liked to hear him talk, especially as he began 
to praise his wife. It was such a pleasure to come 
home when there was such a lass as that to make 
a man comfortable. Nobody could beat her at making 
a shirt or making bread, or cooking ; and he opened 
the oven to show me how much room there was for 
the loaves. Scarcely a cottage but has a grate with 
iron oven attached, and in some places the overpower- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 65 

ing heat reminded me of my friends' house in Ulrich- 
sthal. Then we had a little discourse about books. He 
liked reading, and had a Bible for Sundays, and a few- 
odd volumes which he read in the evenings, but not 
without difficulty ; it was so hard to keep awake after 
a day out of doors. 

Meanwhile I made enticing signs to the merry little 
lassie, and at last she sat without fear on my knee, and 
listened with a happy smile and wondering eyes to my 
chant of the pastoral legend of Little Bopeep. Such 
good friends did we become, that when at length 
I said "good-bye," and shook hands, there was a 
general expression of regret, and a hope that I would 
call again. I certainly will the next time I visit 
Holderness. 

Often since has this incident recurred to my mind, 
and most often when the discussion was going on 
in the newspapers concerning the impropriety of mar- 
riage on three hundred a year. I wished that the 
writers, especially he who sneered at domestic life, 
could go down into Yorkshire, and see how much 
happiness may be had for less than fifty pounds a 
year. As if any selfish bachelor enjoyments, any of 
the talk of the clubs, were worth the prattle of infancy, 
the happy voices of childhood, the pleasures and duties 
that come with offspring ! Sandeau deserved to be 
made Academicien, if only for having said that " un 
berceau est plus eloquent qu'une chaire, et rien n'en- 
seigne mieux a l'homme les cotes serieux de sa des- 
tinee." 

A mile or two farther, and water gleams through 
the trees on the right. It is Hornsea Mere, nearly 

F 



66 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

two miles in length, and soon, when the road skirts 
the margin, you see reedy shallows, the resort of wild- 
fowl, and swans floating around the wooded islands; 
and at the upper end the belts and masses of trees 
under which the visitors to Hornsea find pleasant walks 
while sauntering out to the sylvan scenery of Wassand 
and Sigglesthorne. The lake, said a passing villager, 
averages ten feet in depth, with perhaps as much more 
of mud, and swarms with fish, chiefly pike and perch. 
He added something about the great people of the 
neighbourhood, who would not let a poor fellow fish 
in the mere, and ordered the keeper to duck even little 
boys poaching with stick and string. And he recited 
with a gruff chuckle a rhyming epitaph which one of 
his neighbours had composed to the memory of a 
clergyman who had made himself particularly ob- 
noxious. It did not flatter the deceased. 

In Henry the Third's reign, as may be read in the 
Liber Melsce, or Chronicle of the Abbey of Meaux, 
the Abbot of St. Mary's at York quarrelled with him 
of Meaux about the right to fish in the mere, and not 
being able to decide the quarrel by argument, the 
pious churchmen had recourse to arms. Each party 
hired combatants, who met on the appointed day, and 
after a horse had been swum across the mere, and 
stakes had been planted to mark the Abbot of St. 
Mary's claim, they fought from morning until night- 
fall, and Meaux lost the battle, and with it his ancient 
right of fishery. 

In Elizabeth's reign, the Countess of Warwick 
granted to Marmaduke Constable the right to fish and 
fowl for " the some of fyftye and five pounds of lawful 



A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 67 

English money." This Marmaduke, who thus testified 
his love of fin and feather, was an ancestor of Sir 
Clifford Constable, the present "Lord Paramount," 
upon whom the blind fiddler exercised his wit. 

Hornsea church stands on an eminence at the eastern 
end between the mere and the village. Its low square 
tower once bore a tall spire, on which, as is said, the 
builder had cut an inscription : 

Hornsea steeple, when I built thee, 
Thou was 10 miles off Burlington, 
10 miles off Beverley, and 10 miles off sea ; 

but it fell during a gale in 1773. The edifice is 
a specimen of fifteenth-century architecture, with por- 
tions of an earlier date. The crypt under the chancel 
was at one time a receptacle for smuggled goods, and 
the clerk was down there doing unlawful work when 
the tempest smote the spire, and frightened him well- 
nigh to death. The memory of the last rector is pre- 
served by an altar tomb of alabaster, and of William 
Day, gentleman, who "dyed" in 1616, by a curious 
epitaph : 

If that man's life be likened to a day, 
One here interr'd in youth did lose a day 
By death, and yet no loss to him at all, 
For he a threefold day gain'd by his fall ; 
One day of rest in bliss celestial, 
Two days on earth by gifts terrestryall — 
Three pounds at Christmas, three at Easter Day, 
Given to the poure until the world's last day. 
This was no cause to heaven ; but, consequent, 
Who thither will, must tread the steps he went. 
For why ? Faith, Hope, and Christian charity, 
Perfect the house framed for eternity. 

Hornsea village is a homely-looking place with two 
or three inns, a post-office, and little shops and houses 
F2 



68 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

furbished up till they look expectant of customers and 
lodgers. Many a pair of eyes took an observation of 
me as I passed along the street, and away up the hill, 
seeking for quarters with an open prospect. Half a 
mile farther, the ground always rising, and you come 
to the edge of a clay cliff, and a row of modern 
houses, and the Marine Hotel in full view of the sea. 

Even at the first glance you note the waste of the 
land. As at Kilnsea, so here. A few miles to the 
south, between us and Owthorne, stands the village of 
Aldborough, far to the rear of the site once occupied 
by its church. The sea washed it away. That church 
was built by Ulf, a mighty thane, in the reign of 
Canute. A stone, a relic of the former edifice, bear- 
ing an inscription in Anglo-Saxon, which he caused to 
be cut, is preserved in the wall of the present church. 
This stone, and Ulf's horn, still to be seen in York 
Minster, are among the most venerable antiquities of 
the county. 

Hornsea is a favourite resort of many Yorkshire folk 
who love quiet; hence a casual traveller is liable to be 
disappointed of a lodging on the shore. There was, 
however, a room to spare at the hotel' — a top room, 
from which, later in the evening, I saw miles of ripples 
twinkling with moonlight, and heard their murmur on 
the sand through the open window till I fell asleep. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 69 



CHAPTER VII. 

Coast Scenery — A waning Mere, and wasting Cliffs — The Rain and the 
Sea — Encroachment prevented — Economy of the Hotel — A Start on 
the Sands — Pleasure of Walking — Cure for a bad Conscience — Phe- 
nomena of the Shore— Curious Forms in the Cliffs — Fossil Remains 
— Strange Boulders — A Villager's Etymology — Reminiscences of 
"Bonypart" and Paul Jones — The last House— Chalk and Clay — 
Bridlington — One of the Gipseys— Paul Jones again — The Sea-Fight 
— A Reminiscence of Montgomery. 

I WAS out early the next morning for a stroll. The 
upper margin of the beach, covered only by the highest 
tides, is loose, heavy sand, strewn with hardened lumps 
of clay, fatiguing to walk upon ; but grows firmer as 
you approach the water. The wheels of the bathing- 
machines have broad wooden tires to prevent their 
sinking. The cliffs are, as we saw near the Spurn, 
nothing but clay, very irregular in profile and eleva- 
tion, resembling, for the most part, a great brown 
bank, varying in height from ten feet to forty. The 
hotel stands on a rise, which overtops the land on 
each side and juts out farther, commanding a view 
for miles, bounded on the north by that far-stretching 
promontory, Flamborough Head; and to the south by 
the pale line, where land and water meet the sky. 
The morning sun touching the many jutting points, 
while the intervals lay in thin, hazy shadow, imparted 



70 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

something picturesque to the scene, which vanished as 
the hours drew on, and the stronger light revealed the 
monotonous colour and unclothed surface of the cliffs. 
Towards evening the picturesque reappears with the 
lights falling in the opposite direction. 

A short distance south of the hotel, a stream runs 
from the mere to the sea. The land is low here, 
so low that unusually high tides have forced their way 
up the channel of the stream to the lake, and flooded 
the grounds on both sides; and the effect will be, as 
Professor Phillips says, the entire drainage of the mere, 
and production of phenomena similar to those which 
may be seen on the other parts of the coast of Holder- 
ness. A depression in the cliffs exposing a section of 
deposits such as are only formed under a large surface 
of standing water. The result is a mere question of 
time ; and if it be true that Hornsea church once stood 
ten miles from the sea, within the historical period, the 
scant half-mile, which is now all that separates it from 
the hungry waves, has no very lengthened term of 
existence before it. More than a mile in breadth 
along the whole coast from Bridlington to Spurn has 
been devoured since the Battle of the Standard was 
fought. 

An old man of eighty who lives in the village says 
there are no such high tides now as when he was a 
boy ; and if he be not a romancer, the low ground from 
the sea to the mere must, at least once, have presented 
the appearance of a great lake. But the wasting pro- 
cess is carried on by other means than the sea. I saw 
threads of water running down the cliffs, produced by 
yesterday's rain, and not without astonishment at the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 71 

great quantities of mud they deposit at the base, form- 
ing in places a narrow viscous stream, creeping in a 
raised channel across the sand, or confused pasty heaps 
dotted with pools of liquid ochre. Mr. Coniton, the 
proprietor of the hotel, told me that he believed the rain 
had more influence than the sea in causing the waste of 
the land, and he showed me the means he employed to 
protect his territory from one and the other. To prevent 
the loss by rain, which he estimates, where no precau- 
tions are taken, at a foot a year, he at first sloped his 
cliff at such an angle that the water runs easily down, 
and with scarcely appreciable mischief. Then, to protect 
the base, he has driven rows of piles through the sand 
into the clay beneath, and these, checking the natural 
drift of the sand to the southward, preserve the under 
stratum. Where no such barrier exists, the waves in 
a winter storm sweep all the sand clean off, and lay bare 
the clay, and tumbling upon it with mighty shocks, 
sometimes wear it down a foot in the course of a tide. 
By this lowering of the base, the saturated soil above, 
deprived of support, topples over, leaving a huge gap, 
which only facilitates further encroachments; and in 
the course of a few tides the fallen mass is drifted away 
to enlarge the shoals in the estuary of the Humber. 

Mr. Coniton entered into possession fifteen years ago, 
and in all that time, so effectual are the safeguards, has 
lost none of his land. The edge, he says, has not re- 
ceded, and, to show what might be, he points to his 
neighbour's field, which has shrunk away some yards to 
the rear. 

The space between the hotel and the edge of the 
cliff is laid out as a lawn, which, sheltered by a bank 



72 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

on the north, forms an agreeable outlook and lounging- 
place, while gravelled paths lead to an easy descent to 
the sands at each extremity of the premises. The 
house is well arranged; there is no noise, no slackness 
in the service ; and families may live as privately as in 
a private residence. The charge for adults is four 
shillings a day; for young children, half a guinea a 
week, without stint as to number of meals: to which 
must be added the cost of rooms and attendance. The 
charges to casual guests are as reasonable as could be 
desired, contrasting favourably in this particular with 
my experiences at Hull and in certain of the inland 
towns and villages. Ninepence a day for service and 
boots is charged in the bill; hence you can depart 
without being troubled to " remember" anybody. An 
omnibus arrives every day from Beverley during the 
season — May to November. The distance is thirteen 
miles. 

The falling tide had left a breadth of comparatively 
firm sand by the time I was ready to start, and along 
that I took my way to Bridlington : another stage of 
thirteen miles. The morning was bounteous in ele- 
ments of enjoyment: a bright sun, great white clouds 
sailing high across the blue, a south-westerly breeze, 
which made the sea playful and murmurous : all gratify- 
ing to the desire of a wayfarer's heart. I could not 
help pitying those farmers at Beverley who saw no 
pleasure in walking. No pleasure in the surest pro- 
motion of health and exercise ! No pleasure in the 
steady progressive motion which satisfies our love of 
change without hindering observation ! No pleasure in 
walking, that strengthens the limbs and invigorates 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 73 

the lungs ! No pleasure in arming the sling against 
the giant! No pleasure in the occasion of cheerful 
thoughts and manifold suggestions which bring con- 
tentment to the heart ! Walking is an exercise which 
in our days might replace, more commonly than it does, 
the rude out door recreations of former times ; and if 
but a few of the many hundreds who put on their Sun- 
day clothes to lounge the hours away at the corner of 
a street, would but take a ten miles' walk out to the 
country lanes or breezy moorlands, they would find 
benefit alike to their manhood and morals. If I re- 
member rightly, it is one of the old Greeks who says 
that walking will almost cure a bad conscience ; and, 
for my part, I am never so ready to obey the precept 
of neighbourly love as when my sentiments are harmo- 
nized by walks of seven or eight leagues a day. 

The sands are of varying consistency. In some 
places you leave deep footprints; and nowhere is the 
firmness equal to that we shall find farther north, ex- 
cept on the wet border from which the wave has just 
retired. Mile after mile it stretches before you, a 
broad slope of sand, sparely roughened here and there 
by pebble drifts. At times you see numerous rounded 
lumps lying about of many sizes, which at a distance 
resemble sleeping turtles, and on a nearer view prove 
to be nothing but masses of hardened clay water-worn, 
and as full of pebbles as a canon's pudding is of plums. 
These are portions of the bottoms of lakes overrun by 
the sea; stubborn vestiges, which yield but slowly. 
At times the shortest route takes you through watery 
flats, or broad shallow streams, where little rivers are 
well-nigh swallowed by the sand as they run across 



74 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

to the sea. A little farther and you come to a low 
bank, everywhere cut up by glistening ripple-marks, or 
to a bare patch of clay, which feels like india-rubber 
under your foot. 

And the cliffs taken thus furlong by furlong offer a 
greater variety than appears at first sight. Here, the 
clay is cracked in such a way as to resemble nothing 
so much as a pile of huge brown loaves; now it falls 
away into a broken hollow patched with rough grass; 
now it juts again so full of perpendicular cracks that 
you liken it to a mass of starch ; now it is grooved by 
a deep gully; now a buttress terminates in a crum- 
bling pyramid — umber mottled with yellow; now it is 
a rude stair, six great steps only to the summit ; now a 
point, of which you would say the extremity had been 
shaped by turf-cutters; now a wall of pebbles, hun- 
dreds of thousands of all sizes, the largest equal in big- 
ness to a child's head; now a shattered ruin fallen in a 
confused heap. Such are some of the appearances left 
by the waves in their never-ending aggressions. 

In one hollow the disposition of the clay was so sin- 
gular, and apparently artificial, and unlike anything 
which I had ever seen, that I could only imagine it to 
be a recess in which a party of Assyrian brickmakers 
had been at work and left great piles of their bricks in 
different degrees of finish. It was easier to imagine 
that than to believe such effects could be produced by 
the dash of the sea, 

The greatest elevation occurs about Atwick and 
Skirlington, places interesting to the palaeontologist, 
on account of fossils — an elephant's tusk, and the head 
and horns of the great Irish elk — found in the cliffs. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 75 

Farther on the cliff sinks to a mere bank, six feet in 
height, but, whether high or low, you need not fear a 
surprise by the rising tide, for you can scramble up 
anywhere out of reach of the water. Looking inland 
from these points you see always the same character of 
scenery, and where a path zigzags up you will notice 
large trays used for carrying up the heaps of pebbles 
there accumulated, for the construction of drains, 
fences, and walls. Among remarkable curiosities are 
two large boulders — one of a slaty rock, the other of 
granite half embedded in the sand. From what part 
of the country were they drifted to their present posi- 
tion ? 

Here and there I fell in with a villager taking a 
quiet walk on the beach, and leading two or three 
little children. One of them told me that the Strick- 
lands, a well-known family in Holderness, derived their 
name from Strikeland; that is, they were the first to 
strike the land when they came over. Collectors of 
folk-lore will perhaps make a note of this rustic ety- 
mology. He remembered hearing his father talk of 
the alarm that prevailed all along the coast when there 
was talk of u Bonypart's" invasion ; and how that Paul 
Jones never sailed past without firing a ball at Rolles- 
ton Hall, that stood on a slope in sight of the sea, 
where dwelt Mr. Brough, who, as Marshal to the Court 
of Admiralty, had to direct the proceedings on the trial 
of Admiral Byng. 

Here and there are parties of country lads bathing; 
or trying which can take the longest jump on the 
smooth sand; or squatting in soft places idly watching 
the waves, and exasperating their dogs into a fight. 



76 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

After passing Skipsea and the northern end of the 
Barmston drain, the lone house in the distance catches 
your eye; the last house of Auburn — a village de- 
voured by the sea. The distance is deceptive along 
the level shore ; but when at length you come to the 
spot, you see a poor weatherbeaten cottage on the top 
of the cliff, and so close to the edge, that the eastern 
wall forms but one perpendicular line with the cliff 
itself. You can hardly help fancying that it will fall at 
any moment, even while you are looking; but so it 
has stood for many years; a fact the more remarkable, 
as in this place the cliff projects as if in defiance of 
the ruthless waters. Look at the old maps, and you 
will read : u Here Auburn washed away by the sea ;" 
and the lone house remains a melancholy yet sugges- 
tive monument of geological change. 

Now Bridlington comes in sight, and immediately 
beyond you see a change in the aspect of the cliffs. 
The chalk formation which stretches across England 
from Kent to Yorkshire, makes its appearance here as 
a thin white band under the clay, becoming thicker 
and thicker, till at length the whole cliff is chalk from 
base to summit, and the great promontory, of snowy 
whiteness, gleams afar in the sunlight along the shores 
and across the sea. The chalk opposes a barrier, which, 
though far less stubborn than the volcanic rocks of 
Cornwall, is yet more enduring than the clay : hence 
the land rushes proudly out on the domain of ocean. 
Nearness, however, while it shows you the mouths of 
caverns and gullies, like dark shades in the chalk, 
markedly shortens the headland to the eye. 

The last mile of cliff as you approach Bridlington 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 77 

is diversified by a pale chalky stratum, about four feet 
thick along trie top. It dips down in places basin- 
like, and contrasts strangely with the clay. 

Bridlington Quay, as the seaward part of the town 
is named, though situate at the very rear of the Head, 
is, as I saw on turning the last point, not safe from the 
sap and shock of the breakers. The cliff, sunken in 
places, exhibits the effect of landslips in rough slopes, 
and ugly heaps. Two legs of the seat fixed at the 
corner overhang the edge and rest upon nothing, and 
you see that the remainder are doomed to follow, not- 
withstanding the numerous piles driven in for pro- 
tection. 

The two arms of the pier enclose a small harbour, 
one of the few places of refuge for vessels caught by 
easterly gales on the Yorkshire coast — a coast de- 
ficient in good and easily-accessible harbours. A 
chalybeate spring bursts from the cliff on the northern 
side; and near the middle of the port an artesian well 
throws up a constant stream, varying with the rise 
and fall of the tide. The noisy brook which you cross, 
on entering the principal street, has its sources in 
those remarkable springs which, known as " the 
Gipseys," gush out from the foot of the wolds. 

Bridlington attracts numbers of that class of visitors 
for whom Hornsea is too quiet and Scarborough too 
gay: in fine weather, steamers arrive with pleasure 
parties from Hull and Whitby, Flamborough Head 
being the great attraction. The boatmen ask fifteen 
shillings a day for a boat to sail round the Head, and 
give you opportunity to peer into caverns, or to shoot 
seafowl should your desire be for " sport." And be- 



78 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

sides their pay, the tough old fellows like to have a 
voice in provisioning the boat, resolute to demonstrate 
how much your pleasure depends on u laying in plenty 
of bottled porter." 

The church, situate in the town about half a mile 
from the Quay, was at one time as large and hand- 
some as the minster of Beverley ; but of late years the 
visitor has only been able to see the remains of beauty 
through grievous dilapidations, in which the hand of 
man was more implicated than the weather. Paul 
Jones is still held responsible for some of the mischief. 
Now, however, the work of restoration is commenced, 
and ere long the admirable details and proportions of 
the edifice will reappear. 

Here it was that, attended by a convoy of seven 
Dutch vessels of war, commanded by Van Tromp, 
Queen Henrietta Maria landed in 1 6*43 ; and there are 
people yet living who remember the terror inspired 
by the redoubtable privateer aforementioned, while 
the North- American colonies were battling for their 
liberties. On the 20th of September, 1779, a mes- 
senger came in hot haste from Scarborough to Brid- 
lington with news that an enemy had been espied off 
the coast, and in the evening of the same day the 
Yankee squadron was in sight from Flamborough 
Head. Preparations were at once made to send the 
women and children into the interior; money and 
valuables were hastily packed, and some of the inha- 
bitants, panic-stricken, actually fled. The drum beat 
to arms ; the Northumberland militia, then quartered 
in the neighbourhood, were called out; and all the 
coasting-vessels bore up for Bridlington Bay, and 






A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 79 

crowded for protection into the little harbour. 
Scarcely a town or village on the Yorkshire coast 
but has its story of alarms and unwelcome visitations 
from the American privateers. 

On the 24th the timid population witnessed a sea- 
fight from the cliffs. Jones, with the Bonhomme 
Richard j and the Pallas and Alliance frigates, inter- 
cepted the Serapis, of forty-four, and Countess of 
Scarbro\ of twenty-two guns, convoying a fleet of 
merchant-vessels, and at once commenced action. 
The two largest ships grappled, and fired into each 
other for two hours, the two frigates meanwhile sail- 
ing round, and doing their best to cripple the Eng- 
lishman. The American at length struck ; but only as 
a feint, for when the crew of the Serapis boarded, they 
fell into an ambush prepared for them, and suffered so 
much loss, that the Serapis hauled down her colours, 
and the Countess of Scarbrd was taken by the Pallas. 
The victory, however, was dearly won : the Bonhomme 
Richard lost three hundred men in killed and wounded, 
and was so grievously cut up in her hull, that the 
next day she went to the bottom. Captain Pearson, 
of the Serapis, in his despatch to the Admiralty an- 
nouncing the capture of his ship, had good reason to 
write, "I flatter myself with the hopes that their 
lordships will be convinced that she has not been 
given away." 

The scene of three of Montgomery's sonnets is laid 
at Bridlington. Turn to the volume and read them , 
before you go farther. 



80 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

What the Boarding- House thought — Landslips — Yarborough House — 
The Dane's Dike— Higher Cliffs— The South Landing— The Flam- 
borough Fleet — Ida, the Flamebearer — A Storm — A Talk in a Lime- 
kiln — Flamborough Fishermen — Coffee before Rum-7-No Drunkards 
— A Landlord's Experiences — Old-fashioned Honesty. 

The party — four gentlemen and one lady — at the 
boarding-house where I tarried to dine, agreed unani- 
mously that to pass a whole Sunday morning in walk- 
ing, was especially blameworthy. Besides being wrong 
in itself, it was " setting such a bad example ;" nor 
would they hear reason on the question. With them, 
indeed, it was no question: they quoted the fourth 
Commandment, and that settled it. Any departure 
from that was decidedly wrong, if not sinful. And 
then, perhaps out of a benevolent desire for my spi- 
ritual welfare, they urged me to stay till the morrow, 
when I might join them in a boat- trip to the Head, 
and help to fire guns at the seafowl. It surprised 
me somewhat to hear them discuss their project with 
as much animation as if they had not just administered 
a homily to me, or the day had not been Sunday. 
The possibilities of weather, the merits of cold pies, 
sandwiches, and lively bottled drinks, powder and 
shot moreover, and tidal contingencies, were talked 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 81 

about in a way that led me to infer there was nothing 
at all wrong in consuming the holy day with anti- 
cipations of pleasure to come in the days reckoned 
unholy. Then one of the party set off to walk to a 
village three miles distant ; and presently, when I 
started for Flamborough, the other three accompanied 
me as far as the path along the cliff was easy to 
the foot. So I could only infer again that there is 
nothing wrong in short walks on a Sunday. It is 
simply the distance that constitutes the difference be- 
tween good and evil. Some folk appear to believe 
that if they only sit under a pulpit in the morning, 
they have earned a dispensation for the rest of the 
day. 

The cliffs now are sixty feet in height, broken by 
frequent slips in the upper stratum of clay, and nume- 
rous cracks running along the path mark the limits of 
future falls. One of the slips appeared to be but a 
few hours old, and the lumps, of all dimensions, with 
patches of grass and weeds sticking out here and 
there, lying in a great confused slope, suggested the 
idea of an avalanche of clay. Ere long you come to 
Yarborough House, a stately mansion standing em- 
bowered by trees about a furlong from the shore. 
Holding that an Englishman has an inherent right of 
way along the edge of his own country, I gave no 
heed to the usual wooden warning to trespassers, 
erected where the path strikes inland at the skirt of the 
grounds, and kept along the pathless margin of the cliff. 
Nothing appeared to be disturbed by my presence ex- 
cept a few rabbits, that darted as if in terror to their 
burrows. Once past the grounds you come into large 

G 



82 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

fields, where the grain grows so close to the brink of 
the precipice, that you wonder alike at the thrift of the 
Yorkshire farmers and the skill with which they drive 
their ploughs in critical situations. 

As you proceed, the cliffs rise higher, interrupted 
in places by narrow gullies, one of which is so deep 
and the farther bank so high as to appear truly formi- 
dable, and shut out all prospect to the east. After 
a difficult scramble down, and a more difficult scramble 
up, you find yourself on the top of a ridge, which, 
stretching all across the base of the headland from sea 
to sea, along the margin of a natural ravine, remains 
a monument, miles in length, of the days 

" When Denmark's Raven soar'd on high, 
Triumphant through Northumbrian sky." 

It is the " Dane's Dike," a barrier raised by our 
piratical Scandinavian forefathers to protect their set- 
tlements on the great promontory. With such a 
fence, they had always a refuge to fall back upon where 
they could hold their own, and command the landing- 
places till more ships and marauders arrived with suc- 
cours. As the eye follows the straight line of the 
huge grass-grown embankment, you will feel some- 
thing like admiration of the resolute industry by 
which it was raised, and perhaps think of the fierce 
battles which its now lonely slopes must once have 
witnessed. 

Still the cliffs ascend. Farther on I came to a broader 
and deeper ravine, at the mouth of which a few boats lay 
moored ; and others hauled up on the beach, and coming 
nearer, I saw boat after boat lodged here and there on 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 83 

the slopes, even to the level ground above, where, 
judging from the number, the fleet found its rendez- 
vous. It was curious to see so many keels out of their 
element, most of them gay with stripes of blue and 
red, and bearing the names of the wives and daugh- 
ters of Flambrd. The little bay, however, known as 
the South Landing, is one of the two ports of Flam- 
borough : the other, as we shall see after passing the 
lighthouse, is similar in formation — a mere gap in the 
cliffs. They might be called providential landing- 
places, for without them the fishermen of Flambo- 
rough would have no access to the sea, except by 
ladders down the precipice. As it is, the declivity 
is very steep; and it is only by hauling them up to 
every available spot, that room is found for the 
numerous boats. 

Here it was that Ida, the Flamebearer, is supposed 
to have landed, when he achieved the conquest of 
Northumbria; and here the galleys of the Sea-Kings 
found a precarious shelter while the daring Northmen 
leaped on shore to overrun the land in later centuries, 
when tradition alone preserved the remembrance of 
the former invaders and their warlike deeds. 

I was prowling hither and thither in the ravine, 
entertained with the present while imagining the past, 
when the clouds, grown every minute blacker since 
noon, let fall their burden with something like tropical 
vehemence. For some time there was no perceptible 
pause in the lightning or thunder, and against the 
accompanying rain an umbrella was but as gauze. I 
rushed into the arch of a neighbouring limekiln, and, 
once in, was kept there two hours by the roaring storm. 
G2 



84 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Presently two fishermen, speeding up from the landing, 
made for the same shelter, and of course, under the 
circumstances, we fraternised at once, and talked the 
time away. 

Clean and well-clad, they were favourable — and as I 
afterwards saw — not exceptional specimens of their 
class. In their own opinion the Flamborough fisher- 
men bear as good a character as any in Yorkshire — 
perhaps better. About seven years ago they all re- 
solved to work but six days a week, and on no account 
to go to sea on Sundays. They held to their resolve, 
and, to the surprise of most, found themselves the 
better. They earn quite as much as before, if not 
more, and go to work with better spirit. During the 
herring season it is a common practice with them 
to put into Scarborough on Saturday evening, and 
journey home by rail for the Sunday, taking advan- 
tage of the very low fares at which return tickets are 
issued to fishermen. And as for diet, they take good 
store of bread and meat, pies even, in their boats, 
seeing no reason why they should not live as well as 
their neighbours. A glass of rum was acceptable, 
especially in cold and blowing weather ; but so far as 
they knew, there were very few fishermen who would 
not " choose hot coffee before rum any day." 

There was none of that drinking among fishermen 
now as there used to be formerly. You could find 
some in Flamborough " as liked their glass," but none 
to be called drunkards. There is a National School in 
the village ; but not so well attended as it might be, 
and perhaps would be if they had a better school- 
master. The people generally had pretty good health, 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 85 

which is possibly the occasion why the last two doctors, 
rinding time hang heavy on their hands, drank them- 
selves to death. There is, or rather was in July, 1857, 
an opening for a doctor in Flamborough. 

The rain still fell heavily when we left our shelter, 
and it kept on till past midnight. Luckily the village 
was not a mile distant, and there I took possession of 
a comfortable chair by the kitchen fire of The Ship. 
The landlord corroborated all that the fishermen had 
told me, with the reservation that he found it difficult 
to clear his room of tipplers on Saturday night, although 
none could be set down as drunkards. At times he 
put on his clock ten minutes, to ensure a clearance 
before the Sunday morning, resolutely refusing to 
refill the glasses after twelve. The guests would go 
away growling out a vow never to return to such an 
inhospitable house; but not one kept the vow more 
than a fortnight. When, nineteen years ago, he deter- 
mined not to open his house on Sunday to any but 
strangers who might chance to arrive from a distance, 
the village thought itself scandalised, and the other 
public-houses predicted his ruin. They were, however, 
mistaken. The Ship still flourishes ; and the host and 
his family " find themselves none the worse for going 
to a place of worship, and keeping the house quiet one 
day in seven." 

" Sometimes," he ended, " we don't think to fasten 
the front door when we go to bed; but it's all the 
same; nobody comes to disturb us." Which may be 
taken as an indication that honesty has not yet aban- 
doned Flamborough. 



86 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Men's and Women's Wages— The Signal Tower—The passing Fleet— 
The Lighthouse — The Inland View — Cliff Scenery — Outstretching 
Reefs — Selwicks Bay — Down to the Beach — Aspect of the Cliffs — 
The Matron — Lessons in Pools — Caverns — The King and Queen — 
Arched Promontories — The North Landing — the Herring-Fishers — 
Pleasure Parties — Robin Lyth's Hole — Kirk Hole — View across 
Little Denmark— Speeton— End of the Chalk— Walk to Filey. 

A fresh, bright morning succeeded the stormy 
night, and it was but a few hours old when, after a 
look at the old Danish tower at the west of the village, 
I walked across the fields to the lighthouse. A wo- 
man trudging in the same direction with a hoe on 
her shoulder said, after I had asked her a few ques- 
tions, she wished she were a man, for then she would 
get nine shillings a week and her meat, instead of one 
shilling a day and feeding herself, as at present. How- 
ever, 'twas better than nothing. Presently her daugh- 
ter came up, a buxom maiden, wearing her bonnet in 
a way which saved her the affliction of shrugs and the 
trouble of tying. It was front behind : a fashion 
which leaves no part of the head exposed, shelters the 
poll, and looks picturesque withal. It prevails, as I 
afterwards noticed, among the rustic lasses every- 
where. 

As I passed the old stone tower near the coast- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 87 

guard station, the signal-man was busy raising and 
lowering his flag, for a numerous fleet of coasting- 
vessels was running by to the southward, each telling 
its name as it came within signal distance. The man 
sends a daily list of the names to London for publica- 
tion, whereby coal-merchants and others hear of car- 
goes on the way, and calculate the time of their arrival. 
It is a peculiarity of Flamborough Head, an enlivening 
one, that ships can keep so close in that the men on 
their decks are distinctly seen, and their voices heard, 
by one standing on the cliff. 

The lighthouse, a circular white tower, eighty-two 
feet in height, stands on the verge of the cliff, display- 
ing inside and out all that admirable order and cleanli- 
ness characteristic of British lighthouses. There is no 
difficulty in obtaining admittance ; you sign your name 
in a book, and are forthwith conducted up to the lan- 
tern by the chief or one of his aids. The light is 
revolving, alternately white and red, and can be seen 
at a distance of thirty miles. But here, elevated two 
hundred and fifty feet above the sea, you feel most in- 
terested in the prospect. No " shadowy pomp of 
woods " arrests the eye looking landwards, but a re- 
gion bleak and bare in aspect rolling away to the dis- 
tant wolds, the line of uplands which, sweeping round, 
approaches the coast about Scarborough. The village 
with its windmill, and the few farms that are in sight, 
look naked and comfortless. Not an inviting territory 
for an invader given to the picturesque. But seawards, 
and along the rugged front of the cliffs, grandeur and 
variety exert their charm. Here the up-piled chalk 
flings out a bold perpendicular buttress, solid from 



88 A MONTH IN" YORKSHIRE. 

base to summit; there the jutting mass is isolated by 
yawning cracks and chasms, and underneath, as we 
shall presently see, is fretted into fantastic shapes, 
pierced through and through, or worn into caverns by 
the headlong billows. In places a broken slope of 
rocky hummocks and patches of grass, weeds, and 
gravel descends, more or less abruptly, to the beach, 
opening a view of the long weed-blackened reefs that, 
stretching out from the Head, afford a measure of the 
amazing encroachments of the sea. Northwards, the 
bluff crowned by Scarborough Castle, backed by 
higher elevations, closes the view; to the south you 
have the low, fading coast of Holderness. And all 
the while brigs, ships, and schooners are sailing past, 
more than a hundred in sight, some of them so near 
that you fancy they will hardly escape the lurking 
points of the dark reef. One small vessel, the keeper 
told me, had touched the day before, and lay fast and 
helpless till, the weather being calm, she floated off by 
the succeeding tide. You can look down into Selwicks 
Bay, and see men and boys quarrying chalk, and 
donkeys laden with heavy panniers of the lumps, toil- 
ing painfully up the steep winding road which forms the 
only approach. The farther horn of the little bay is 
arched and tunnelled, and taken with the waterfall 
plunging down in its rear and the imposing features of 
the points beyond, invites to further exploration. 

The residents at the lighthouse enjoy an abundant 
supply of water from a spring within their enclosure : 
their garden produces cabbages and potatoes; the 
neighbours are friendly, and visitors numerous. Hence 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 89 

life is more cheerful to them than to ths amphibious 
hermits who dwell at the Spurn. 

While looking for a practicable descending-place, I 
noticed many tufts of thrift as thick with flowers as in 
an antiquated garden where the old favourites are still 
cherished. 



" Even here hath Nature lavished hues, and scent, 
And melody ; born handmaids of the ocean : 
The frowning crags, with moss and rock-flowers blent, 

Dazzle the eyes with sunlight, while the motion 
Of waves, the breezes fragrant from the sea, 
And cry of birds, combine one glorious symphony !" 



The time — dead low water — being favourable for a 
stroll on the beach, I scrambled down a rough slope to 
the south of the lighthouse, and across the rougher 
beach to the rocks beyond the outmost point, where, 
turning round, I could view the cliffs in either direc- 
tion. And a striking scene it is ! A wild beach, as 
rugged Avith water-worn lumps of chalk as any lover 
of chaos could desire. Here the cliff jutting proudly, 
the white patches gleaming brightly where masses of 
chalk have recently fallen, and the harder portions 
presenting a smooth, marble-like appearance ; there 
receding into the shade, and terminating in darksome 
hollows, the mouths of gullies and caverns; and every 
where broken up with buttresses, piers, and columnar 
projections, the bases of which are garnished with a 
belt of shelly incrustation, and a broad brown fringe of 
weed. Above, the white surface is varied by streaks 
and stains of yellow and green, and seafowl innumer- 
able crowd on all the ledges, or wheel and dart in 



90 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

restless flight, as if proud to show their white wings to 
the sun. 

The reef stretches out a quarter of a mile, as one 
may guess, worn here and there with channels narrow 
and deep, along which the water rolls with intermittent 
rush and roar, reminding the loiterer here in the 
slumberous July weather of tremendous energies lulled 
to repose. I walked round the Matron — an isolated 
pyramid of chalk — and patted her on the back ; and 
strode from one little pool to another, taking an un- 
scientific lesson in natural history while watching the 
animal and vegetable occupants, and those that seemed 
to be as much one as the other. I got a fine specimen 
of the hermit crab, and proved the strength of local 
attachment : it would not be coaxed from its hermitage 
— the shell of a whelk. 

I saw a limpet give its shell half a rotation, then 
grow tall for an instant, and then shut itself snugly 
down upon the rock. At times, while I stood quite 
still, " ninnycocks," that is, young lobsters, would ven- 
ture out from their crevices, and have a frolic in their 
weedy basin; but they would tolerate no intruder, and 
darted into undiscoverable retreats on my slightest 
movement. And the animated flowers that displayed 
their orange and crimson petals at the bottom of the 
basin were equally mistrustful, and shut themselves up 
if I did but put my hand in the water, even after they 
had looked on without winking at the gambols of the 
ninnycocks. 

There are times when ignorance has a charm, and 
this was one of them. How much happier to sit and 
watch a crowd of weeds, a very forest in miniature, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 91 

tenanted by creeping things innumerable, and to have 
your faculty of wonder excited as well as admiration 
while observing them in full liberty, than to come 
prepared to call one an ascidian, another an entomo- 
stracan, and so on, and to assign to each its place in the 
phycological handbook, or the zoological catalogue. 

In some of the smallest and deepest caverns which 
curve as they enter the cliff, you get effects of cross 
lights from their inner extremity, and see the glisten- 
ing of the walls, which, worn smooth by the water, 
appear to be varnished. In all the floor rises more or 
less rapidly; and in one, a hundred paces deep, the 
rush and roar of the surge outside comes only as a 
gentle murmur, and a slow drip-drip from the crevice 
has an impressive sound there in the gloom where 
entrance cannot be seen. 

I took advantage of the opportunity, and explored 
most of the openings, catching sight now and then 
of belemnites and other curious fossils in the chalk; 
wading at times knee-deep in weed, and scrambled 
round the bays on each side of the point, and failed 
not to salute the venerable King and Queen. 

Having rambled about till the rising tide began 
to cut off the way round the promontories, and the 
crabbers came in from their raid on the reefs, I 
climbed the rough slope, and paced away for the 
North Landing. Beyond Selwicks Bay the cliff is more 
broken and cut up into romantic coves and bays; with 
confused landslips here and there, and in places the 
green turf rushing half way down masks the chalk ; 
and everywhere are thousands of birds, with their 
ceaseless cry and clang. Isolated masses are nu- 



92 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

merous; and from one point I could count eight head- 
lands, each pierced by an arch. And here the water, 
no longer stained with clay, shows green and bright 
along the base of the cliff, beautifully pellucid where 
it rolls over a bottom of chalk, contrasting strangely 
with darksome gulfs and broad beds of weed. And 
mingling with the cry of birds, there comes from time 
to time to your ear the noisy report of the guns, or 
the chant of the fishermen, as rocked on the swell, 
they sit watching their nets. 

The North Landing is a gap similar to the South, 
but broader, and with an outlet wide enough to be 
described as a bay. Here I saw some sixty or eighty 
boats perched from top to bottom of the steep slope; and 
groups of fishermen with their families, men, women, 
and children, all busy with preparations for the herring 
fishery. While some sorted the nets, others lifted in 
big stones for ballast, or set up the masts, and others 
pushed their boats down to meet the tide, and all in high 
good humour ; while all about there prevailed a strong 
fishy smell. And besides the fishermen, there were 
parties of young men with their guns embarking for 
a sporting cruise; some, armed only with parasols and 
accompanied by ladies, setting off for a sail round the 
Head ; for this is the chief port of Flamborough, and 
the North Star, a public-house at the top of the hill, 
is convenient for the commissariat. 

The advance of the tide prevented my seeing Robin 
Lyth's Hole, a cavern on the eastern side of the 
Landing; named, as some say, after a certain smuggler 
who kept his unlawful merchandise therein ; or to com- 
memorate the name of a man who was caught in the 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 93 

cavern by the tide, and saved his life by clinging to 
the topmost ledge till the water fell. Another cavern 
is known as the Dovecote; another as Kirk Hole; and 
of this the tradition runs that it extends far under- 
ground to the village churchyard. 

I climbed up the western side of the gap, and con- 
tinued my way along the cliffs, which maintain their 
elevation. Soon I came to the northern end of the 
Dike, a height of three hundred feet, and from the top 
beheld the whole territory of Little Denmark, and the 
sea all the way round to the lighthouse, and the 
southern end of the Dike. According to Professor 
Phillips, this remarkable bank was probably already in 
existence when the Danes landed: "perhaps earlier 
than the Anglian invasion," he says ; " perhaps it is a 
British work, like many other of the entrenchments on 
these anciently peopled hills." 

A mile farther, and the cliff rises to a height of 
more than four hundred feet. In some places the 
bank which encloses the fields is broad enough for a 
footpath ; but you must beware of the landslips. The 
fences, which are troublesome to climb, project beyond 
the edge of the cliff to keep the cows, as an old farmer 
said, "from persevering after the grass and tumbling 
over." Then at Speeton the chalk turns inland away 
from the coast, the cliff makes a deep hollow curve, 
chiefly gravel and dark blue clay, abounding in fossils. 
To avoid the curve, I zigzagged down to the beach; 
but was presently stopped by a point against which 
the waves were dashing breast high. I scrambled 
over it, and was struck by its curious appearance. It 
seemed to be a high clay buttress, which had fallen 



94 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

perhaps within a few weeks, and was broken up into 
masses of somewhat regular form, resembling big 
loaves, and the long grass that had once waved on the 
surface now looked like dishevelled thatch. It was 
an interesting example of the way in which the sea 
commences its ravages. 

Farther on the cliffs diminish in height, and are 
furrowed by numerous streamlets, and the rugged, 
stony beach changes to smooth, yielding sand. Filey 
comes in sight, and Filey Brig, a long black bar stretch- 
ing into the sea from the extreme point of the great 
bay, half concealed at times by a quivering ridge 
of foam. Then we pass from the East to the North 
Riding, and ere long we look up at Filey — a Royal 
Hotel, a crescent, and rows of handsome houses, coldish 
of aspect, a terrace protected by a paved slope, and 
gravelled paths and a stair for easy access to the beach. 
The terrace commands a view over the bay, and of the 
cliffs all the way to Flamborough. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 95 



CHAPTER X. 

Old and New Filey — The Ravine — Filey Brig — Breaking "Waves — 
Rugged Cliffs — Prochronic Gravel — Gristhorpe Bay — Insulated 
Column— Lofty Cliffs— Fossil Plants— Red Cliff— Cayton Bay— Up 
to the Road — Bare Prospect — Cromwell Hotel and Oliver's Mount — 
Scarborough — The Esplanade — Watering-Place Phenomena — The 
Cliff Bridge— The Museum— The Spa— The Old Town— The Har- 
bour — The Castle Rock — The Ancient Keep — The Prospect — Remi- 
niscences : of Harold Hardrada ; of Pembroke's Siege ; of the Papists' 
Surprise ; of George Fox ; of Robin Hood — The One Artilleryman — 
Scarborough Newspapers — Cloughton — The Village Inn, and its 
Guests — Tudds and Pooads. 

Here at Filey you begin to see a special character- 
istic of these sea-side resorts : — the contrast between the 
new and old — the nineteenth century looking proudly 
across a narrow debatable ground at the sixteenth 
and seventeenth, putting even still earlier periods out 
of countenance. Were it not for its churches, the 
olden time would on occasions be made to feel ashamed 
of itself. 

A breezy commanding outlook in front; a large 
handsome church, with low square tower, in the rear; a 
few shops trying to reconcile themselves to the new 
order of things while supplying the wants of fifteen 
hundred inhabitants ; more than a few true to the old 
order, and here and there behind the dim panes, eggs 
of seabirds, and shells, and marine stores, in the literal 



96 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

sense ; and two or three quiet-looking, respectable 
inns, open to visitors whom the style of the Royal Hotel 
intimidates; the new town on the south, and a wooded 
ravine on the north ; and such is old Filey. 

Into this ravine I descended from the church. Heavy 
rain had fallen nearly all night, and the paths were so 
sticky and slippery, that I wondered so pretty a spot, 
so capable with bushes and trees and a little brook 
of contributing to recreation, should not be better 
kept. There is no lack of material for solid paths 
in the neighbourhood ; but judging from appear- 
ances the ravine gets none of it. The path follows the 
course of the brook, and brings you out upon a beach 
where fishing-boats, and nets, and lobster-pots, and 
heaps of ballast, and a smoky fire, and fishy refuse and 
a smell of tar, and sturdy men and women, make 
up divers pictures for the eye, and odours for the 
nostrils. 

As, on approaching Flamborough, we saw the chalk 
begin to appear at the base of the cliff, so here we see 
a stratum of sandstone slanting up beneath the clay, 
rising higher towards the northern horn of the bay, 
and thence stretching out for three furlongs into the 
sea, forming the remarkable reef known as Filey Brig. 
Camden describes it as u a thin slip of land, such as 
the old English called File; from which the little 
village Filey takes its name." We may suppose that 
the cliff once projected as far, sheltering an indenta- 
tion so deep that Ptolemy might well call it the well- 
havened bay ; though on this particular there are dif- 
ferent opinions among the learned. Even now, stripped 
of its cap of clay, the reef forms a natural breakwater, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 97 

of which the effect is best seen in the quiet of the 
small vessels at anchor behind it. 

I was fortunate in the time, for a strong north wind 
was blowing, and the great waves, checked in their 
career, dashed headlong against the stony barrier, and 
broke into little mountains of foam, bursting up here 
and there in tali white intermittent jets as from . a 
geyser; here one solid surge tumbling over another, 
mingling with rush and roar in a wide drift of spume ; 
there flinging up gauzy whiffs of spray as if mermaids 
in frolic were tossing their veils. So mighty were 
the shocks at times as to inspire a feeling of insecurity 
in one who stood watching the magnificent spectacle. 

You can walk out to the end of the reef, and get 
good views of Scarborough, about six miles distant in 
one direction, and away to Flamborough on the other. 
The floor is generally level, interrupted in places by 
great steps, channels, and holes ; and by huge blocks of 
many tons' weight scattered about, testifying mutely to 
the tremendous power of the sea. 

It is a wild scene, and wilder beyond the point, where 
the whole beach is strewn with broken lumps, and 
ledge succeeds to ledge, now high, now low, compelling 
you to many an up-and-down, stooping under a rude 
cornice, or scrambling over a slippery ridge. In places 
the cliff overhangs threateningly, or, receding, forms an 
alcove where you may sit and feast your eye with the 
wondrous commotion, and your ear with the thunder- 
ing chorus of many waters. 

The upper stratum of clay is worn by the two- 
fold action of rain and spray into singularly fantastic 
forms, and where it has been deeply excavated, there, 

H 



98 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

kept in by the rim of stone, lies a salt-water pool so 
bright and pellucid that the temptation to bathe therein 
is irresistible. I thought to get round to Gristhorp 
Bay, but came presently to a recess where the breakers 
rushing half way up the cliff barred all further pro- 
gress. To lean against the rocky wall and feel it throb 
with the shock within the shower of spray, produced 
an almost painful emotion; and it seemed to me that 
the more tumultuous the sea the better did it harmo- 
nise with a promontory so rugged and grim. 

I retraced my steps to a stair that zigzags up tiie cliff 
on the inner side of the point. Near this certain visitors 
have cut their initials in the hard rock floor, of such 
dimensions that you can only imagine a day must have 
been spent in the task with mallet and chisel. Vain 
records ! The sea will wash them out some day. When 
on the summit I was struck more than before by the 
contrast between the rage and uproar on the outside 
of the ridge, and the comparative calm inside ; nor was 
it easy to leave a view to which, apart from all the fea- 
tures of the shore, the restless sea added touches of the 
sublime, wherein wrought fascination. And all the 
while men, looking like pigmies in the distance, were 
groping for crabs along each side of the far-stretching 
reef. 

A little way north of the point a rustic pavilion 
standing in a naked garden indicates where the visitor 
will find a jutting buttress whence to contemplate the 
scene below. More exposed on this side, the cliff is 
more cut up and broken in outline, jutting and reced- 
ing in rugged ledges, and in every hollow rests one of 
those limpid pools, so calm and clear that you can see 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 99 

the creeping things moving between the patches of 
weed at the bottom. And the beach is thickly strewn 
with boulders of a size which perhaps represents the 
gravel of the " prochronic " era. 

The elevation increases as we advance, and by-and- 
by looking round on Filey, we see how it lies at the 
mouth of a broad vale which it requires no great effort 
of imagination to believe may have been an estuary 
at some very remote period, near to the time 



" When the Indian Ocean did the wanton play, 
Mingling its billows with the Balticke sea, 
And the whole earth was water." 



And far as you can see inland the prospect is bare 
even to the distant hills and wolds which loom large 
and mountainous through the hazy atmosphere. 

Now the cliff shows bands of colour — brown, gray, 
and ochre, and the lower half capped by a green slope 
forms a thick projecting plinth to the perpendicular 
wall above. Scarborough begins to be visible in de- 
tail, and soon we descend into Gristhorp Bay, where 
rough walking awaits us. At its northern extremity 
stands an insulated columnar mass, somewhat resem- 
bling the Cheesewring, on a rude pedestal shaped by 
the waves from the rocky layers. Situate about fifty 
yards from the point, it marks the wear of the cliff 
from which it has been detached, while the confused 
waste of rocks left bare by the ebb suggests ages of 
destruction prior to the appearance of the stubborn 
column. 

The cliffs are of imposing height, nearly three hun- 
dred feet : a formidable bulwark. It is heavy walking 
H2 



100 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

along their base, but as compensation there are strata 
within reach in which you may find exhaustless de- 
posits of fossil plants, giant ferns, and others. And 
so the beach continues round Red Cliff into Cayton 
Bay, where another chaos of boulders will try your 
feet and ability to pick your way. To vary the route, 
I turned up at Cayton Mill, past the large reservoir 
from which Scarborough is supplied with water, along 
the edge of the undercliff to the high road, leaving 
Carnelian Bay unvisited. At the hill-top you come 
suddenly upon a wide and striking prospect — a great 
sweep of hilly country on one hand, on the other the 
irregular margin of the cliffs all the way to the town, 
and a blue promontory far beyond the castle bluff, 
which marks our course for the morrow. 

The road is good and the crops look hopeful ; but 
the hedgerows are scanty and stunted, and not im- 
proved by the presence of a few miserable oaks ; nor 
do the plantations which shelter the farm-houses and 
stingy orchards appear able to rejoice though summer 
be come. In some places, for want of better, the 
banks are topped by a hedge of furze. On the left of 
the road, long offshoots from the bleak uplands of the 
interior terminate with an abrupt slope, presenting the 
appearance of artificial mounds. Another rise, and 
there is Scarborough in full view, crowding close to 
the shore of its bay, terminated by the castle rock, the 
most striking feature. Bright, showy houses scattered 
on the south and west indicate the approaches to the 
fashionable quarter, and of those farthest from the sea 
you will not fail to notice the Cromwell Hotel — a new 
building in Swiss-like style of architecture, at the foot 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 101 

of Oliver's Mount. The Mount — so named from a 
tradition that the Protector planted his cannon there 
when besieging the castle — is another of those trun- 
cated offshoots, six hundred feet in height, and from the 
summit, which is easily accessible and much visited, 
you get an interesting prospect. 

You see the tops of the trees in the deep valley 
which divides the New Town from the Old, and rear- 
wards, broken ground sprinkled with wood, which im- 
parts some touches of beauty to the western outskirts. 

Then, turning to the right, you come upon a stately 
esplanade, and not without a feeling of surprise after a 
few days' walking by yourself. For here all is life, 
gaiety, and fashion. Long rows of handsome houses, 
of clean, light-coloured sandstone, with glittering win- 
dows and ornamental balconies, all looking out on the 
broad, heaving sea. In front, from end to end, 
stretches a well-kept road, where seats, fixed at fre- 
quent intervals, afford a pleasurable resting-place; and 
from this a great slope descends to the beach, all em- 
bowered with trees and shrubs, through which here 
and there you get a glimpse of a gravelled path or 
the domed roof of a summer-house. And there, two 
hundred feet below, is the Spa — a castellated building 
protected by a sea-wall, within which a broad road 
slopes gently to the sands. You see visitors descend- 
ing through the grove for their morning draught of 
the mineral water, or assisting the effect by a " con- 
stitutional" on the promenade beneath ; while hun- 
dreds besides stroll on the sands, where troops of 
children under the charge of nursemaids dig holes 
with little wooden spades. And here on the esplanade 



102 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

elegant pony barouches, driven by natty little posti- 
lions, are starting every few minutes from the aris- 
tocratic-looking hotel to air gay parties of squires 
and dames around the neighbourhood. And turning 
again to the beach, there you see rows of bathing- 
machines gay with green and red stripes, standing 
near the opening of the valley, and now and then one 
starts at a slow pace laden with bathers to meet the 
rising tide. And beyond these the piers stretch out, 
and the harbour is crowded with masts, and two 
steamers rock at their moorings, waiting for " excur- 
sionists." The whole backed by the houses of the 
Old Town rising picturesquely one above the other, 
and crowning the castle heights. 

Nearly an hour passed before I left that agreeable 
resting-place : none better for getting a view of Scar- 
borough and its environment. Of all the strollers I 
saw none go beyond what appeared to be a conven- 
tional limit; nature without art was perhaps too 
fatiguing for them. In all my walk along the coast, 
I met but two, and they were young men, who had 
ventured a few miles from head-quarters for a real 
walk on the cliffs. 

A bridge, four hundred feet long and seventy- 
five high, offers a level crossing for foot-passengers 
from the esplanade to the opposite side of the deep 
valley above mentioned, on payment of a toll. It is 
at once ornamental and convenient, saving the toil of 
a steep ascent and descent, and combining the advan- 
tage of an observatory. From the centre you get a 
complete view of the bay, one which the eye rests on 
with pleasure, though you will hardly agree with a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 103 

medical author, that it is a " Bay of Naples." In the 
other direction, you look up the wooded valley, and 
down upon the Museum, a Doric rotunda, built by the 
members of the Scarborough Philosophical Society, 
for the preservation of geological specimens. The 
contents are admirably classified, rocks and fossils in 
their natural order ; amid them rests the skeleton of an 
ancient British chief; and near the entrance you may 
see the clumsy oak coffin in which it was found, 
about twenty-five years ago, in a barrow at Gris- 
thorp. 

Descend into the valley, and you will find pleasure 
in the sight of the bridge, and miles of water seen 
through the light and graceful arches. Then take a 
walk along the sands, and look up at the leafy slope, 
crowned by the esplanade, and you will commend the 
enterprise which converted an ugly clay cliff into a 
hanging wood. And enterprise is not to stop here: 
Sir Joseph Paxton, as I heard, has been consulted 
about the capabilities of the cliff to the south. Some 
residents, however, think that Scarborough is already 
overdone. 

In a small court within the Spa you may see the 
health-giving waters flowing from two mouths, known 
from their position as North Well and South Well. 
The stream is constant, and, after all the wants of the 
establishment are supplied, runs across the sand to the 
sea. The water has a flavour of rusty iron and salt, 
differing in the two wells, although they are but a few 
feet apart; and the drinkers find it beneficial in cases 
of chronic debility, and indigestion, with their re- 
morseless allies. 



104 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

The contrast is more marked between New and 
Old than at Filey. There is, however, a good, re- 
spectable look about the streets of the Old Town, and 
signs of solid business, notwithstanding the collections 
of knick-knackery and inharmonious plate-glass. From 
the broad main street you descend by a narrow crooked 
street — from old through oldest to the harbour, where 
old anchors, old boats, old beams and buttresses dispute 
possession with the builders of new boats, who make 
the place noisy with their hammering. Here, as a 
Yorkshireman would say, were assembled all the 
"ragabash" of Scarborough, to judge by what they 
said and did. Boys and men were fishing from the 
pier-head under the lighthouse, watched by grizzly 
old mariners, who appeared to have nothing better to 
do than to sit in the sun; children paddled in the 
foamy shallows of the heavy breakers; carts rumbled 
slowly to and from the coal brigs, followed by stout 
fellows carrying baskets of fish; a sight which might 
have shamed the dissolute throng into something like 
industry. 

Enclosed by the three piers which form the harbour 
stands a detached pile of masonry, seemingly an ancient 
breakwater — all weatherbeaten, weedy, and grass- 
grown, with joints widely gaping, looking as if it had 
stood there ever since Leland's day — a remarkable 
object amid the stir of trade and modern construc- 
tions, but quite in harmony with the old pantile- 
roofed houses that shut in the port. Among these 
you note touches of the picturesque; and your eye 
singles out the gables as reminiscences of the style 
which, more than any other, satisfies its desire. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 105 

But let us go and look down on the scene from the 
castle rock. The ascent is steep, yet rich in recom- 
pense. St. Mary's church, near the summit, and the 
fragments of old walls standing amidst the graves, 
remind us of its former dimensions, and of the demo- 
litions it suffered during the siege. And there rises 
in massive strength, to a height of ninety feet, a 
remnant of the castle keep — an imposing ruin full 
before us, as we cross the drawbridge, pass under the 
barbican, and along the covered way, to the inner 
court. But the court is a large, rough pasture, fenced 
on the north and east, where the cliff is perpendicular 
as a wall, and towards the town shut in by a range 
of old wall, pierced by a few embrasures, some low 
buildings, and the remains of an ancient chapel. 
There is no picturesque assemblage of ruins ; but little 
indeed besides the shattered keep, and that appears 
to best effect from without. Near the chapel, Our 
Lady's Well, a spring famous from time immemorial, 
bubbles silently up in a darksome vault. 

Northwards the view extends along the rugged coast 
to the Peak, a lofty point that looks down on Robin 
Hood's Bay, and to hazy elevations beyond Whitby. 
To get a sight of the town you must return to the 
barbican, where you can get upon the wall and securely 
enjoy a bird's-eye view; from the row of cannon which 
crown the precipice sheer down to the port and away 
to the Spa, all lies outspread before the curious eye. 

A great height, as we have already proved, appears 
to be favourable to musing, especially when the sun 
shines bright. And here there is much to muse about. 
Harold Hardrada, when on his way to defeat and death 



106 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

at Stamford Brig, landed here, and climbing the " Scar- 
burg" with his wild sea-rovers, lit a huge bonfire, and 
tossed the blazing logs over the clitT down upon the 
town beneath. The burg, or fortress, was replaced in 
the reign of Stephen by a castle, which, renewed by 
Henry II., became one of the most important strong- 
holds of the kingdom. Piers Gavestone defended it 
vigorously against the Earl of Pembroke, but was 
starved into a surrender, with what result we all know. 
The Roman Catholics attempted it during their Pil- 
grimage of Grace, but were beaten off. In 1554, 
however, when Queen Mary was trying to accomplish 
the Pilgrims' work, a son of Lord Stafford and thirty 
confederates, all disguised as rustics, sauntered unsus- 
pected into the outer court, where on a sudden they 
surprised the sentries, and immediately admitting a re- 
serve party carrying concealed arms, they made them- 
selves masters of the place. The success of this sur- 
prise is said to have given rise to the adage " Scar- 
borough warning; a word and a blow, and the blow 
first." But after three days the Earl of Westmoreland 
regained possession, and Mr. Stafford underwent the 
same sharp discipline as befel Edward the Second's 
favourite. At length came the struggle between Pre- 
rogative and People, and in the triumph of the right 
the castle was well-nigh demolished; and since then, 
time and tempest have done the rest. 

Among the unfortunates who suffered imprisonment 
here, George Fox, the aboriginal Quaker, has left us 
a most pathetic account of his sufferings. Brought 
hither from Lancaster Castle, he was put into a 
chamber which he likened to purgatory for smoke, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 107 

into which the rain beat, and after he had " laid out 
about fifty shillings" to make it habitable, " they re- 
moved me," he writes in his Journal, " into a worse 
room, where I had neither chimney nor fireplace. 
This being to the sea-side and lying much open, the 
wind drove in the rain forcibly, so that the water came 
over my bed and ran about the room, that I was fain 
to skim it up with a platter. And when my clothes 
were wet, I had no fire to dry them ; so that my body 
was benumbed with cold, and my fingers swelled, that 
one was grown as big as two." For more than a year 
did the resolute Peacemaker endure pain and privation, 
and vindicate his principles on this tall cliff; and 
when three years later, in 1669, he again went preach- 
ing in Yorkshire, he revisited Scarborough, and " the 
governor hearing I was come," he writes, " sent to 
invite me to his house, saying, ' surely I would not be 
so unkind as not to come and see him and his wife.' 
So after the meeting I went up to visit him, and he 
received me very courteously and lovingly." 

Five hundred years earlier, and, as the ballad tells, 
the merry outlaw, Robin Hood, who 

« 

" The Yorkshire woods frequented much," 

being a-weary of forest glades and fallow deer, ex- 
claimed, 

" The fishermen brave more money have 
Than any merchants two or three ; 
Therefore I will to Scarborough go, 
That I a fisherman brave may be." 

But though the " widow woman" in whose house "he 
took up his inn," lent him a stout boat and willing 



108 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

crew, lie caught no fish, and the master laughed at 
him for a lubber. However, two or three days later, 
he espied a ship of war sailing proudly towards 
them, and then it was the master's turn to lament, for 
the French robbers spared no man. To him then 
Eobin : 

" 'Master, tye me to the mast,' saith he, 
' That at my mark I may stand fair, 
And give me my bent bow in my hand, 
And never a Frenchman will I spare.' 

" He drew his arrow to the very head, 

And drew it with all might and maine, 
And straightway in the twinkling of an eye, 
To the Frenchman's heart the arrow's gane. 
# * * * 

" Then streight they boarded the French ship 
They lyeing all dead in their sight ; 
The found within that ship of warre 

Twelve thousand pound of mony bright." 

The castle is national property, and as the bluff 
affords a good site for offence and defence, a magazine 
and barracks for a company of men have been built. 
For all garrison, at the time of my visit, there was but 
one invalid artilleryman, who employs his leisure in 
constructing models of the ruins for sale along with 
bottles of ginger-beer. He will talk to you about the 
nice water of Our Lady's Well; the cavern in the 
cliff, where the officers once dined; of the cannon-balls 
that Cromwell sent across from Oliver's Mount; about 
the last whale caught on the shore, and about the 
West Indies, where he lost his health; but he re- 
members little or nothing of Piers Gavestone or 
George Fox, and is not quite sure if he ever heard 
that Robin Hood went a-privateering. His duties, he 
told me, were not heavy; he did not even lock the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 109 

gate at night, because folk came very early in the 
morning to fetch their cows from the pasture. 

Since then, that is, in the autumn of 1857, the rains 
occasioned a landslip, which nearly obliterated the 
cavern ; a whale thirty feet long was caught flounder- 
ing in the shallows ; and on Seamer Moor, about three 
miles distant, ancient gold and silver rings and orna- 
ments, beads and broken pottery, and implements of 
bronze and iron and a skeleton, were found on exca- 
vating a chalky knoll. 

Of course, a town of thirteen thousand inhabitants 
must have its newspapers. The Scarborough Gazette 
is a curiosity for its long list of visitors, filling some- 
times two pages. A cheap paper — the title of which 
I have lost — was a curiosity to me in another way, for 
I could not have believed that Yorkshire folk would 
read anything so stupid as the wordy columns therein 
passed off for politics. 

The shadows were lengthening towards the east 
when, after satisfying myself with another look at the 
coast to the north, I took the road for Cloughton, 
leaving the town by the north esplanade, where 
Blenheim-terrace shows the sober style of the first 
improvements. Many visitors, however, prefer the 
view from those plain bay-windows to that seen from 
the stately houses to the south. 

Cloughton is a small, quiet village, with a Red Lion 
to match, where you may get good rustic fare — cakes, 
bacon, and eggs— and a simple chamber. The land- 
lord, a patriarch of eighty-five, still hale and active, who 
sat warming his knees at the turf fire, opened his 
budget of reminiscences concerning Scarborough. The 



110 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

change from what it was to what it is, was wonderful. 
He went there at election times. Had once been to 
vote at York, years ago, " when there was a hard fight 
betuxt a Milton and a Lascelles." Had never been 
to London, but his niece went up to the Great Exhi- 
bition. While we talked, in came a shabby-looking 
fellow with a six days' beard, for a pint of beer. He 
had been trout-fishing all day on the moors — one of 
his means of living. He stayed but a few minutes, 
and as he went out the patriarch said, " He's a 
roughish one to look at, but he can make powetry." 
It was too late to call him back, or I might perhaps 
have got a specimen. 

Then came in the rustics in twos and threes for 
their evening pint and pipe, most of them preferring 
hard porter to the ale, which was really good. Not 
one had a complaint to make of hard times: wages 
were one and sixpence a day, and meat, and good 
meat, too — beef and mutton and pies — as much as 
they could eat. They didn't want to emigrate; 
Yorkshire was quite good enough for them. While 
talking to them and listening to their conversation 
among themselves, my old conviction strengthened 
that the rural folk are not the fools they are commonly 
taken to be. Choose such words as they are familiar 
with — such as John Bunyan uses — and you can make 
them understand any ordinary subject and take plea- 
sure in it. And how happy they are when you can 
suggest an illustration from something common to 
their daily life ! I would have undertaken to give an 
hour's lecture on terrestrial magnetism even, to that 
company ; and not one should have wished it shorter. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 1 1 1 

And once having broken through their crust of awk- 
wardness, you find them possessed of a good fund of 
common sense, quick to discern between the plausible 
and what they feel to be true. Flattering speeches 
made at hay-homes and harvest-homes are taken for 
what they are worth; and the sunburnt throng are 
everywhere ready to applaud the sentiment conveyed 
in a reaper's reply to a complimentary toast : 

" Big bees fly high ; 
Little bees make the honey 
Poor men do the work ; 
Rich men get the money." 

One of the party, lively enough to have lived when 
the island was " merry England," hearing that I 
intended to walk through Bay Town on the morrow, 
said, laughingly, " You'll find nought but Tadds and 
Pooads down there;" meaning that Todd and Poad 
were the prevalent names. 



112 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

From Cloughton to Haiburn Wyke — The embowered Path — Approach 
to the Sea — Rock, Water, and Foliage — Heavy Walking — Stainton- 
dale Cliffs— The Undercliff— The Peak— Raven Hall— Robin Hood's 
Bay — A Trespass — Alum. Works — Waterfalls — Bay Town — Manners 
and Customs of the Natives — Coal Trade — The Churchyard — 
Epitaphs — Black-a-moor — Hawsker — Vale of Pickering — Robin 
Hood and Little John's Archery — Whitby Abbey — Beautiful Ruin 
—St. Hilda, Wilfrid, and Coedmon— Legends— A Fallen Tower— St. 
Mary's Church — Whitby — The Vale of Esk — Specimens of Popular 
Hymns. 

The next morning looked unpromising ; the heavy 
rain which began to fall the evening before had con- 
tinued all night, and when I started, trees and hedges 
were still dripping and the grass drooping, over- 
burdened with watery beads. Byepaths are not 
enticing under such circumstances; however, the 
range of cliffs between Haiburn Wyke and Robin 
Hood's Bay is so continuously grand and lofty that I 
made up my mind to walk along their summit whether 
or not. 

About half an hour from Cloughton brought me to 
a "crammle gate," as the natives call it; that is, a 
rustic gate with zigzaggy rails, from which a private 
road curves down through a grove to a farm-house on 
the right. Here, finding no outlet, I had to inquire, 
and was told to cross the garden. All praise to the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 113 

good-nature which trusts a stranger to lift the " clink- 
ing latch " and walk unwatched through a garden so 
pretty, teeming with fruit, flowers, and vegetables; 
where a path overarched by busy climbers leads you 
into pleasing ins and outs, and along blooming borders 
to the edge of a wooded glen, and that is Haiburn 
Wyke. The path, not trimly kept as in the garden, 
invites you onwards beneath a thick shade of oak, ash, 
and hazel; between clumps of honeysuckle and wild 
roses, and broken slopes hung with ferns and ivy, and 
a very forest of grasses ; while, to heighten the charm, 
a little brook descends prattling confidingly to the 
many stones that lie in its crooked channel. The 
path winds, now steep, now gradual, and at the 
bends a seat offers a resting-place if you incline to 
pause and meditate. 

There was another charm : at first a fitful murmur, 
which swelled into a roar as I sauntered down and 
came nearer to the sea. The trees grow so thickly 
that I could see but a few yards around, and there 
seemed something almost awful in the sound of the 
thundering surge, all the heavier in the damp air, 
as it plunged on the rugged beach. So near, and yet 
unseen. But after another bend or two it grows 
lighter overhead, crags peep through the foliage on 
both sides, and then emerging on a level partly filled 
by a summer-house, you see the narrow cove, the jut- 
ting cliffs that shelter it, and every minute the tumul- 
tuous sea flinging all round the stony curve a belt of 
quivering foam. 

I could not advance far, for the tide had but just 
begun to fall; however, striding out as far as possible, 

i 



114 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

I turned to look at the glen. It is a charming scene : 
the leafy hollow, the cliffs rounding away from the 
mantling green to present a bare front to the sea, yet 
patched and streaked with gray and yellow and white 
and brown, as if to make up for loss of verdure. 
There the brook, tumbling over stony ledges, shoots 
in a cascade between huge masses of rock, and hurries 
still with lively noise across the beach, talking as 
freely to boulders of five tons' weight as to stones of a 
pound; heedless, apparently, that its voice will soon 
be drowned for ever in the mighty voice of the sea. 
A charming scene, truly, even under a gloomy sky. 
You will see none fairer on all the coast. On a sun- 
shiny day it should attract many visitors from Scar- 
borough, when those able to walk might explore 
Cloughton Wyke — less beautiful than this — on the 
way. 

To get up the steep clay road all miry with the 
rain on the northern side of the glen, was no easy task ; 
but the great ball of clay which clung to each of my 
feet was soon licked off by the wet grass in the fields 
above. I took the edge of the cliffs, and found the 
ascent to the Staintondale summit not less toilsome. 
There was no path, and wading through the rank grass 
and weeds, or through heavy wheat and drenched 
barley on ground always up-hill, wetted me through up 
to the hips in a few minutes, and gave me a taste of 
work. For the time I did not much admire the York- 
shire thriftiness which had ploughed and sown so close 
to the bank leaving no single inch of space. However, 
I came at times to a bare field or a pasture, and the 
freshening breeze blew me almost dry before climbing 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 1 15 

over awkward fences for another bath of weeds and 
grain. And besides a few faint watery gleams of sun- 
shine began to slant down upon the sea, and the in- 
creasing height of the cliffs opened wide views over 
land and water — from misty hills looming mountainous 
on one side, to the distant smoke of a coasting steamer 
on the other. And again there are two or three miles 
of undercliff, a great slope covered with a dense bush, 
threaded here and there by narrow paths, and forming 
in places an impenetrable tangle. To stand on the 
highest point, five hundred and eighty-five feet above 
the sea, and look down on the precipitous crags, the 
ridges and hollows and rounded buttresses decked with 
the mazy bush where birds without number haunt, is 
a sight that repays the labour. At the corner of one 
of the fields the bushes lean inwards so much from the 
wind, that the farmer has taken advantage of the 
overshoot to construct a bower wherein to sit and enjoy 
the prospect. 

These tall cliffs are the sudden termination of a 
range of hills stretching from the interior to the coast. 
Taken with the undercliff, they present many combi- 
nations which would delight the eye and employ the 
pencil of an artist. And to the geologist they are of 
abounding interest, exhibiting shale, shelly limestone, 
sandstones of various qualities in which belemnites 
and ferns, and other animal and vegetable fossils, are 
embedded in surprising quantities. You can descend 
here and there by a zigzag path, and look up at the 
towering crags, or search the fallen masses, or push 
into the thicket; that is, in dry weather. After about 
two miles the bush thins off, and gives place to gorse, 

12 



116 A MOXTH m YOKKSHIRE. 

and reedy ponds in the hollows, and short turf on 
which cattle and sheep are grazing. 

The range continues for perhaps five miles and ends 
in a great perpendicular bluff— a resort of seabirds. 
Here on getting over the fence I noticed that the 
pasture had a well-kept, finished appearance; and pre- 
sently, passing the corner of a wall, I found myself on 
a lawn, and in front of Raven Hall — a squire's resi- 
dence. An embrasured wall built to represent bastions 
and turrets runs'along the edge of the cliff, and looking 
over, you see beneath the grand sweep of Robin Hood's 
Bay backed by a vast hollow slope — a natural amphi- 
theatre a league in compass, containing fields and mea- 
dows, shaly screes and patches of heath, cottages, and 
the Peak alum-works. We are on the Peak, and can 
survey the whole scene, away to Bay Town, a patch 
of red capped by pale-blue smoke just within the 
northern horn of the bay. 

A lady and gentleman were trying in defiance of 
the wind to haul up a flag on the tall staff erected at 
the point, to whom I apologised for my unintentional 
trespass. They needed no apology, and only wondered 
that any one should travel along the cliffs on such a 
morning. " Did you do it for pleasure ?" asked the 
lady, with a merry twinkle in her eye as she saw how 
bedraggled I looked below the knees. 

The gentleman left the flapping banner, and showed 
me from the rear of the premises the readiest wav 
down to the beach — a very long irregular descent, 
the latter portion across the alum shale, and down the 
abrupt slope of Cinder Hill, where the buildings are 
blackened by smoke. At first the beach is nothing 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 117 

but a layer of small fragments of shale, of a dark slate 
colour, refuse from the works; and where the cliffs 
reappear there you see shale in its natural condition, 
and feel it beneath your feet while treading on the 
yielding sand. Numerous cascades leap down from 
these cliffs; at the time I passed swollen by the rain, 
and well set off by the dark precipice. One of them 
was a remarkably good representation of the Staubbach 
on a small scale. 

About half way I met a gig conveying visitors to 
the Hall at a walking pace, for the wheels sank deep. 
It was for them that the flag was to be raised, as a 
signal of welcome; and looking back I saw it flying 
proudly, on what, seen from below, appeared a castle on 
the cliff. At this moment the sun shone out, and lit 
up the Peak in all its magnificent proportions ; and all 
the effects of my trudge through drip and mire soon 
disappeared. Another mile and the rocks are thickly 
strewn with periwinkles, and great plashy beds of sea- 
weed must be crossed, and then we see that the outer- 
most houses rest on a solid weather-stained wall of 
boulders, through which descends a rugged incline 
of big stones — the foot of the main street of Bay 
Town. 

There is no lack of quarters, for within a few 
yards you may count seven public-houses. It is a 
strange place, with alleys which are stairs for side 
streets, and these leading into queer places, back yards 
and pigsties, and little gardens thriving with pot- 
herbs. Everything is on a slope, overtopped by the 
green hill behind. Half way up the street, in what 
looks like a market-place, lie a number of boats, as if 



118 A MONTH M YOEKSHIKE. 

fox ornament. You can hardly imagine them to have 
been hauled up from the beach. Some of the shops are 
curiosities in their appearance and display of wares; 
yet there are traders in Bay Town who could buy up 
two or three of your fashionable shopkeepers in the 
watering-places. 

i <Yer master wants ye," said a messenger to a young 
fellow who sat smoking his pipe in the King's Head, 
while Martha, the hostess, fried a chop for my dinner. 

" Tell him I isn't here : I isn't a coomin'," was the 
answer, with a touch of Yorkshire, which I heard fre- 
quently afterwards. 

From the talk that went on I gathered that Bay 
Town likes to amuse itself as well as other places. All 
through the past winter a ball or dance had been held 
nearly every evening, in the large rooms which, it 
appears, are found somewhere belonging to the very 
unpretending public-houses. On the other hand, 
church and chapel are well attended, and the singing is 
hearty. "Weddings and funerals are made the occa- 
sion of festivals, and great is the number of guests. 
Martha assured me that two hundred persons were 
invited when her father was buried; and even for a 
child, the number asked will be forty or fifty; and all 
get something to eat and drink. It was commonly 
said in the neighbourhood that the head of a Bay 
Town funeral procession would be at the church 
before the tail had left the house. The church is on 
the hill-top, nearly a mile away. A clannish feeling 
prevails. Any lad or lass who should choose to wed 
with an outsider, would be disgraced. Ourselves to 
ourselves, is the rule. On their way home from church, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 119 

the young couple are beset by invitations to drink at 
door after door, as they pass, and jugs of strong liquor 
are bravely drained, and all the eighteen hundred 
inhabitants share in the gladness. Hence the per- 
petuation of Todds and Poads. However, as re- 
gards names, the most numerous which I saw were 
Granger and Bedlington, or Bettleton, as the natives 
call it. 

The trade in fish has given place to trade in coal; 
and Bay Town owns about eighty coal brigs and 
schooners, which sail to Edinburgh, to London, to 
ports in France, and one, which belongs to a man 
who a few years ago was a labourer, crosses the ocean 
to America. There are no such miserable paupers as 
swarm in the large towns. Except the collier crews, 
the folk seldom leave the parish; and their farthest 
travel is to Hartlepool in the steamer which calls in the 
bay on her way from Scarborough. 

I chose to finish the walk to Whitby by the road; 
and in a few minutes, so steep is the hill, was above 
Bay Town, and looking on the view bounded by the 
massy Peak. Near where the lane enters the high 
road stands the church, a modern edifice, thickly 
surrounded with tombstones. Black, with gilt letters, 
appears to be the favourite style ; and among them are 
white stones, bearing outspread gilt wings and stars, 
and an ornamental border. The clannish feeling loves 
to keep alive the memory of the departed; and one 
might judge that it has the gift of " powetry/' and 
delights in epitaphs. Let us read a few : we shall find 
" drowned at sea," and " mariner," a frequent word in 
the inscriptions: 



120 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Partner dear my life is past, 
My love for you was to the last ; 
Therefore for me no sorrow take, 
But love my children for my sake. 

An old man of eighty-two is made to say : 

From rageing storms at sea 

The Lord he did me save, 

And here my tottering limbs is brought 

To moulder in the grave. 

Lancelot Moorsom, aged seventy-four, varies the 
matter thus: 

Tho' boreas blasts and neptune waves 

Hath toss'd me too and fro', 
By God's decree you plainly see, 

I'm harbour'd here below, 
But here I do at anchor ride 

With many of our fleet, 
And once again I must set sail, 

My Saviour Christ to meet. 

Of a good old wife, we read something for which 
the sex would be the better were it true of all : 

She was not puff'd in mind, 

She had no scornful eye, 
Nor did she exercise herself 

In thiDgs that were too high. 

Childhood claims a tender sentiment; and parents 
mourn thus for their little ones : 

One hand they gave to Jesus, one to Death, 
And looking upward to their Father's throne, 
Their gentle spirits vanish'd with their breath, 
And fled to Eden's ever blooming zone. 

The road runs along the high ground near enough 
to the sea for you to hear its roar, and note the out- 
line of the cliffs, while inland the country rolls away 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 121 

hilly to the dreary region described by old writers 
as u Black-a-moor." Another half-hour, and having 
passed through Hawsker, you see a strange-looking 
building a long way off. It is the Abbey of Whitby. 
And now a view opens into the Vale of Pickering; 
and there, in the fields on the left, are the stones which 
mark where the arrows fell, when Robin Hood and 
Little John, who had been treated to a dinner at the 
Abbey, went up on the roof to gratify the monks with 
a specimen of their skill, and proved the goodness of 
their bows, and their right to rank as foremost of 
English archers. As your eye measures the distance, 
more than a mile, your admiration of the merry out- 
laws will brighten up, unless, like the incredulous 
antiquary, you consider such stories as only fit to be 
left " among the lyes of the land." 

Seen from the road, over the wall-top, the abbey 
reveals but few of the beautiful features which charm 
your eye on a nearer view. To gain admission you 
have to pass through an old mansion belonging to the 
Cholmley family, in which, by the way, there are 
rooms, and passages, and a stair, weapons, furniture, 
and tapestry that remind you of the olden time; 
and in the rear a delightful garden, with a prospect 
along the vale of Esk. Hence you enter a meadow, 
and may wander at will about the ruin. 

I saw it to perfection, for the sky had cleared, and 
the evening sun touched the crumbling walls and 
massy columns and rows of graceful arches with won- 
drous beauty, relieved by the lengthening shadows. 
The effect of the triple rows of windows is singularly 
pleasing, and there are carvings and mouldings still 



122 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

remaining that will bear the closest inspection, although 
it was a mason of the thirteenth century who cut them. 
Three distinct styles are obvious, and you will notice 
that the whitest stone, which is the oldest, is the least 
decayed. An aisle still offers you the shelter of its 
groined roof, the transept still shows the corbels 
and niches, and carved roses that fed the eyes of Robin 
Hood's entertainers, and on the sedilia where they sat 
you may now repose. Every moment you discover 
some new beauty, something to increase your admi- 
ration, and wonder that so much should be left of 
a building which has not a tree to shelter it from the 
storms of the sea. 

For twelve hundred years the ground has been con- 
secrated. Here the blessed St. Hilda founded a mo- 
nastery, and dedicated it to St. Peter, in 658. Here 
it was that the famous debate was held concerning the 
proper time of Easter, between the Christians who 
were converted by Culdee missionaries from Ireland 
before St. Augustine's visit, and those of the later 
time. It was St. John and the practice of the East- 
ern Church against St. Peter and the Western ; and 
through the eloquent arguments of Wilfrid of Ripon, 
the latter prevailed. 

Here Ccedmon, one of the menial monks, was mi- 
raculously inspired to write the poem which immor- 
talises his name; and here St. John of Beverley was 
educated. Then came the Danish pirates, under Ubba, 
and destroyed the monastery, and the place lay waste 
till one of William the Conqueror's warriors, grieved 
to the heart on beholding the desolation, exchanged 
his coat of steel for a Benedictine's gown, and rebuilt 
the sacred house. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 123 

Few who come hither will need to be reminded of 
that inspiriting voyage along the coast, when 

" The Abbess of Saint Hilda placed 
With five fair nuns the galley graced," 

nor of the sisters' evening talk, while 

" — Whitby's nuns exulting told, 
How to their house three barons bold 

Must menial service do ; 
While horns blow out a note of shame, 
And monks cry ' Fye upon your name ! 
In wrath, for loss of sylvan game, 

Saint Hilda's priest ye slew.' — 
This on Ascension day, each year, 
While labouring on our harbour-pier, 
Must Herbert, Bruce, and Percy hear. — 
They told how in their convent cell 
A Saxon princess once did dwell, 

The lovely Edelfled ; 
And how of thousand snakes, each one 
Was changed into a coil of stone 

When holy Hilda pray'd ; 
Themselves, within their holy bound, 
Their stony folds had often found. 
They told how seafowls' pinions fail, 
As over Whitby's towers they sail, 
And sinking down, with fl titterings faint, 
They do their homage to the saint." 

The stately tower, the glory of the ruin, fell in 1830, 
at the close of a reign, during which things good and 
beautiful were unhappily but too much neglected. A 
rugged heap, with lumps of stone peeping out from 
tufts of coarse grass, marks the spot where the fall 
took place ; the last, it is to be hoped, that will be per- 
mitted in so striking a memorial of the architecture of 
the past. Standing in private grounds and surrounded 
by a light iron fence, it is now safe from the intrusion 
of cattle and from wanton spoilers. 

A few yards beyond the abbey, you cross St. Mary's 



124 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

churchyard to the top of a long flight of steps, where a 
remarkable scene opens suddenly beneath. Whitby, 
lying on each side of the Esk, the river winding from 
a wooded vale, expanding to receive the numerous 
vessels of the inner harbour, and flowing away between 
the houses and the two piers to the sea. The declivity 
is so abrupt, that the houses appear strangely huddled 
together, tier above tier, in irregular masses, as if rest- 
ing one on the other, and what with the colour and 
variety of forms, the shipping, the great depth of the 
valley, the great bluffs with which it terminates, and 
line upon line of breakers beginning to foam at two 
furlongs from the shore, make up a scene surpassingly 
picturesque ; one that you will be in no hurry to lose 
sight of. If the Whitby church-goers find it toilsome 
to ascend nearly two hundred steps every Sunday, 
they have a goodly prospect for recompense, besides 
the service. 

One wall of the church is said to be older than any 
portion of the abbey; but the edifice has undergone 
so many alterations, that meritorious architecture is 
not now to be looked for. A more breezy church- 
yard it would not be easy to find. Opposite, on the 
farther cliff, is a cluster of new stone houses, including a 
spacious hotel, built to attract visitors; an enterprise 
promoted by King George Hudson in his palmy days. 

I lingered, contemplating the view, till it was time 
to look for an inn ; I chose the Talbot, and had no 
reason to repent my choice. On the way thither, I 
bought two religious ballads at a little shop, the mis- 
tress of which told me she sold " hundreds of 'em," 
and they were printed at Otley. As specimens of a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 125 

class of compositions which are relished and sung as 
hymns by a numerous section of the community, they 
are eminently suggestive. Do they supply a real 
want? Are they harmless? Are they edifying? Can 
they who find satisfaction therein be led up to some- 
thing better? To close this chapter, here follows a 
quotation from The Railway to Heaven : 

" ! what a deal we hear and read 
About Railways and railway speed, 
Of lines which are, or may he made ; 
And selling shares is quite a trade. 

* * * 

Allow me, as an old Divine, 

To point you to another line, 

Which does from earth to heaven extend, 

Where real pleasures never end. 

Of truth divine the rails are made, 
And on the Rock of Ages laid ; 
The rails are fix'd in chairs of love, 
Firm as the throne of God above. 

* * * 

One grand first-class is used for all, 
For Jew and Gentile, great and small, 
There's room for all the world inside, 
And kings with beggars here do ride. 

* * * 

About a hundred years or so 

Wesley and others said they'd go : 

A carriage mercy did provide, 

That Wesley and his friends might ride. 

'Tis nine-and-thirty years, they say, 
Whoever lives to see next May, 
Another coach was added then 
Unto this all-important train. 

* * # 

Jesus is the first engineer, 

He does the gospel engine steer; 

We've guards who ride, while others stand 

Close by the way with flag in hand. 

CHORUS. 

' My Son, says God, give me thy heart ; 
Make haste, or else the train will start." 



126 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

The other, entitled Daniel the Prophet, begins 
with : 

" Where are now the Hebrew children ? 
Where are now the Hebrew children ? 
Where are now the Hebrew children ? 
Saved into the promised land ;" 

and after enumerating the prophet, the fiery furnace, 
the lion, tribulation, Stephen, and the Great Apostle, 
in similar strain, ends : 

" Where is now the patriarch Wesley? 
Where is now the patriarch Wesley ? 
Where is now the patriarch Wesley ? 
Saved into the promised land. 



" When we meet we'll sing hallelujah, 
When we meet we'll shout hosannah, 
When we meet we'll sing for ever, 
Saved into the promised land." 

Though good taste and conventionality may be 
offended at such hymns as these, it seems to me that 
if those who sing them had words preached to them 
which they could understand and hearken to gladly, 
they would be found not unprepared to lay hold of 
real truth in the end. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 127 



CHAPTER XII. 

Whitby's Attractions — The Pier — The River-Mouth — The Museum — 
Saurians and Ammonites — An enthusiastic Botanist — Jet in the 
Cliffs, and in the "Workshop — Jet Carvers and Polishers— Jet Orna- 
ments — The Quakers' Meeting — A Mechanics' Institute — Memorable 
Names — Trip to Grosmont — The Basaltic Dike — Quarries and Iron- 
stone — Thrifty Cottagers — Abbeys and Hovels — A Stingy Landlord 
— Egton Bridge — Eskdale Woods — The Beggar's Bridge. 

Whitby, and not Scarborough, would be my choice 
had I to sojourn for a few weeks on the Yorkshire 
coast. What it lacks of the style and show which 
characterise its aristocratic neighbour, is more than 
made up by its situation on a river and the beauty of 
its environment; and I regretted not having time to 
stay more than one day in a place that offers so many 
attractions. Woods and waterfalls beautify and en- 
liven the landscape; shady dells and rocky glens lie 
within an easy walk, and the trip by rail to Pickering 
abounds with " contentive variety." And for contrast 
there is always the wild Black-a-moor a few miles 
inland; and beyond that again the pleasant hills and 
vales of Cleveland. 

And few towns can boast so agreeable a promenade 
as that from the bridge, along the spacious quay, and 
out to the pier-head, a distance of nearly half a mile. 
Thence can be seen all the life and movement on the 



128 A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 

river, all the picturesque features of the heights on 
each side crowded with houses, and to seaward the 
foaming crests of waves chasing one another towards 
the land. You can see how, after rolling and plunging 
on the rocky bar, they rush up the stream with a 
mighty swell even to the bridge. In blowing weather 
their violence is such that vessels cannot lie safely in 
the lower harbour, and shift to the upper moorings 
above the bridge. On the pier-head stands a light- 
house, built in the form of a fluted Doric column, 
crowned by a gallery and lantern; and here, leaning 
on the encircling parapet, you can admire the solid 
masonry, or watch the furious breakers, while inhaling 
the medicinal breath of the sea. The pier on the op- 
posite side is more exposed, serving the purpose of 
a breakwater; and at times clouds of spray leap high 
from its outer wall, and glisten for an instant with 
rainbow hues in the sunshine. 

It surprises a stranger on first arrival to hear what 
seems to him the south bank of the river spoken of as 
the east bank, and the north bank as the west; and it 
is only by taking into account the trend of the coast, 
and the direction of the river's course, that the car- 
dinal points are discovered to be really in their true 
position, and you cease to look for sunrise in the 
west. 

One of the buildings at the rear of the quay contains 
the Baths, and on the upper floor the Museum, and a 
good Subscription Library. The Museum, which 
belongs to the Literary and Philosophical Society, 
dates from 1823, a time when Whitby, with the sea 
on one side and wild tracts of moorlands on the other, 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 129 

was in a manner shut out from the rest of the world, 
and compelled to rely on its own resources. Not till 
1759 was any proper road made to connect it with 
neighbouring towns. Warm hospitality was thereby 
nourished, and, as regards science, the result is highly 
meritorious. To say nothing of the collections which 
represent antiquity, ethnology, natural history, and 
mineralogy, the fossil specimens are especially worth 
attention. Side by side with a section of the strata of 
the coast from Bridlington to Redcar is a collection of 
the fossils therein contained; among which those of 
the immediate neighbourhood, such as may be called 
Whitby fossils, occupy the chief place, all classed and 
labelled in a way that shows how much may be done 
with small means when the curator is in earnest. There 
are saurians in good preservation, one of which was 
presented to the Museum for 150/., by the nobleman 
on whose estate it was found embedded in lias. The 
number of ammonites of all sizes is surprising. These 
are the headless snakes of St. Hilda's nuns, and the 
"strange frolicks of nature," of philosophers in later 
days, who held that she formed them " for diversion 
after a toilsome application to serious business." Per- 
haps it is to some superstitious notion connected with 
the snake-stones that the town owes the three ammo- 
nites in its coat of arms. Altogether, the fossil speci- 
mens in the Museum now amount to nearly nine thou- 
sand. 

I had the advantage of explanations from Mr. 
Simpson, the curator, during my visit, and afterwards 
of accompanying him and some of his friends in a 
walk. One of the party, a botanist, was the first to 

K 



130 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

discover the Epilobium alpinum (alpine willow herb) 
in England, while walking one day on the hills near 
Whitby. No sooner did he set eyes on it, than, as his 
companions said, they thought he had taken leave of 
his senses, for he leaped, shouted, danced, sang, and 
threw his hat up in the air, and made other enthusiastic 
demonstrations around the plant, which, up to that 
time, was believed not to exist south of the Tweed. I 
asked him if he would have exchanged his emotions 
for California. 

"No," he answered, "that I wouldn't! At all 
events, not for the first three minutes." 

Besides its traffic in ship-building, alum, and stone, 
Whitby has a trade in works of art which makes at 
least its name known to fashionable society; and for 
this, as for its fossils, it depends on the neighbouring 
cliffs. For many miles along the shore, and at places 
inland, jet is found embedded with other formations. 
Drayton makes mention of it : 

" The rocks by Moulgrave too, my glories forth to set, 
Out of their crany'd cleves can give you perfect jet." 

And the shaping of this remarkable substance into 
articles for ornament and use gives employment to 
five hundred men, women, and children in Whitby. 
I was favoured with a sight of Mr. Greenbury's manu- 
factory, and saw the processes from beginning to end. 
There is nothing mysterious about them. The pattern 
of the desired object, a scroll, leaf, flower, or whatever 
else, is scratched with a steel point on a piece of jet 
sawn to the required dimensions; the workman then 
with a knife cuts away the waste portions, brings out 
the rude form, and by using various knives and chisels, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 131 

according to the delicacy of the design, he in no long 
time has the article ready for the polisher. The work 
looks very easy, as you watch the men cutting, appa- 
rently with less concern than some folk bestow on 
the whittling of a stick, and making the chips fly in 
little heaps. . The nature of the jet favours rapidity of 
hand. It has somewhat the appearance of compressed 
pitch, and when under the knife sends off a shower of 
chips and splinters as hard pitch does. Some speci- 
mens have been found with fossils so embedded therein, 
as to confirm the opinion of those who hold jet to be a 
species of petroleum, contrary to the common belief 
that it is wood partly converted into coal. 

After the knives, the grindstones come into play, to 
work up and smooth all the accessible surfaces; and 
next, swift- whirling wheels encircled with list, which 
give the polish. The deep incisions and hollows which 
cannot be touched by the wheel are polished on nar- 
row slips of list. This is the work of boys : the slips 
of list are made fast by one end to the bench, and 
taking hold of the other, and shifting or tightening as 
the work may require, the boys rub the deep parts of 
the ornaments backwards and forwards till the polish 
is complete. The finishing touch, which imparts the 
brilliance, is given by a sprinkling of rouge, and a light 
hand with the rubber. 

Armlets and bracelets composed of several pieces are 
cemented together, forming a complete hoop, while in 
course of manufacture, to ensure accuracy of workman- 
ship, and are separated at last for the drilling of the 
holes for the elastic cord whereby they are held toge- 
ther in the finished state. The drilling of these holes 
K 2 



132 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

through each separate piece is a nice operation, for 
any departure from the true line would appear as an 
imperfection in the ornament. 

What with the drilling-lathes, the rapid grindstones 
and polishing -wheels, and the busy artificers, from 
those who cut up the jet, to the roughers-out, the 
carvers, the polishers in their order, to the boys with 
their list rubbers, and the finishers, the factory pre- 
sented a busy scene. The boys earn from three-and- 
sixpence to five shillings a week; the men from three 
to four times as much. I made an inquiry as to their 
economical habits, and heard in reply that the landlord 
of the Jetmeris Arms could give the surest information. 

No means has yet been discovered of working up 
the chips and splinters produced in cutting the jet, so 
as to form solid available blocks, as can be done with 
black-lead for pencils; there is, therefore, a consider- 
able amount of waste. The value of jet varies with 
the quality; from ten to eighteen shillings a pound. 
According to the report on mineral products, by Mr. 
Robert Hunt, the value of the jet dug and manufac- 
tured in England is twenty thousand pounds a year. 
Some of the best shops in Whitby and Scarborough 
are those where jet is sold; and not the least attractive 
of the displays in Regent-street, is that labelled Finest 
Whitby Jet, and exhibited as vases, chains, rings, seals, 
brooches, taper-stands, and obelisks. Here in Whitby 
you may buy a small ammonite set in jet. 

Jet is not a new object of luxury. It was used for 
ornamental purposes by the ancient Britons, and by 
their conquerors, as proved by articles found in their 
tombs. A trade in jet is known to have existed in 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 133 

Whitby in 1598. Camden, translating from an old 
Treatise of Jewels, has 

" Jeat-stone almost a gemm, the Lybians find, 
But fruitful Britain sends a wondrous kind ; 
Tis black and shining, smooth, and ever light, 
'Twill draw up straws if rubb'd till hot and bright, 
Oyl makes it cold, but water gives it heat." 

The amber mines of Prussia yield a species of jet 
which is burnt as coal. 

Whitby presents signs of a social phenomenon which 
is observable in other places : the decline of Quakerism. 
I was invited to look at the Mechanics' Institute, and 
found it located in the Quakers' Meeting House. The 
town was one of George Fox's strongholds, and a con- 
siderable number of Quakers, including some of the 
leading families, remained up to the last generation. 
Death and secession have since then brought about 
the result above mentioned. Is it that Quakerism has 
accomplished its work? or that it has been stifled by the 
assiduous painstaking to make itself very comfortable ? 

I went up once more to the Abbey, and to enjoy * 
the view from the churchyard steps. The trouble of 
the ascent is abundantly repaid by such a prospect: 
one should never tire of it. You will hardly fail while 
looking down on the river to remember that Cook 
sailed from it, to begin his apprenticeship to a sea- 
faring life ; and profiting in later years by his early ex- 
periences, he chose Whitby-built ships for his me- 
morable voyage of discovery. And from the Esk 
sailed the two Scoresbys, father and son — two of the 
latest names on the list of Yorkshire Worthies. 

Towards evening I took a trip by railway to Gros- 
mont (six miles), or the Tunnel Station as it is com- 



134 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

monly called, for a glance at the pretty scenery of the 
lower part of Eskdale. The river bordered by rocks 
and wooded hills enlivens the route. From the Tunnel 
I walked about half a mile down the line to a stone 
quarry, where a section of that remarkable basaltic 
dike is exposed, which, crossing the country in a 
north-westerly direction for about seventy miles, im- 
presses the observer with a sense of wonder at the 
tremendous force by which such a mass was upheaved 
through the overlying strata. Here it has the form of 
a great wedge, the apex uppermost; and the sand- 
stone, which it so rudely shouldered aside, is scorched 
and partially vitrified along the line of contact. The 
labourers, who break up the hard black basalt for 
macadamising purposes, call it " chaney metal." 

This is a pleasant spot to loiter in; but its sylvan 
character is marred by the quarrying, and by the 
great excavations where busy miners dig the ironstone 
which abounds in the district, after the rate, as is 
estimated, of twenty-two thousand tons to the acre. 
No unimportant item in the exports of Whitby, until 
blast furnaces shall be built to make the iron on the 
spot. 

"The path '11 tak' ye up to a laan," said the quarry- 
man, with a Dutch pronunciation of lane; " and t' laan 
'11 bring ye do on to Egton, if ye don't tak' t' wrang 
turning." So up through the wood I went, and came 
presently to the lane, where seeing a lonely little cot- 
tage, and a woman nursing a few flowers that grew 
near the door, I tarried for a short talk. 'Twas but a 
poor little place, she said, and vera lonesome; and she 
thought a few flowers made it look cheerful-like. The 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 135 

rent for the house and garden was but a pound a year ; 
but 'twas as much as she could afford, for she had had 
ten children, and was thankful to say, brought 'em all 
up without parish help. 'Twas hard work at times; 
but folk didn't know what they could do till they 
tried. It animated me to hear such honest words. 

A little farther there stands a long low cottage with 
a garden in front, an orchard at the side, and a row of 
beehives in a corner, presenting a scene of rural abun- 
dance. I stopped to look at the crowding flowers, and 
was drawn into another talk by the mistress, who came 
out on seeing a stranger. I could not help expressing 
my surprise at the prosperous look of the garden and 
the shabby look of the house, which appeared the 
worse from a narrow ditch running along the front. 
16 'Tis a miserable house," she answered, a damp and 
low ; but what can we do ? It's all very well, sir, to 
talk about the beautiful abbeys as they used to build 
in the old days, but they didn't build beautiful cot- 
tages. I always think that they built the wall till 
they couldn't reach no higher standing on the ground, 
and then they put the roof on. That's it, sir; any- 
thing was good enough for country folk in them 
days." Some modern writers contend that the abbeys 
and cathedrals were but the highest expression of an 
architecture beautiful and appropriate in all its de- 
grees; but I doubt the fact, and hold by the York- 
shirewoman's homely theory. 

I suggested that the landlord might be asked to 
build a new house. u Ah, sir, you wouldn't say that 
if you knew him. Why, he won't so much as give us 
a board to mend the door ; he'll only tell us where to go 
and buy one." I might have felt surprised that any 



136 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

landlord should be willing to allow English men and 
women to dwell in such a hovel; but she told me his 
name, and then there was no room for surprise. 

Ere long the view opens over the valley, and a 
charming valley it is ; hill after hill covered with wood 
to the summit. Then the lane descends rapidly, and 
we come to the romantically situated hamlet of Egton 
Bridge. This is a place which, above all others, 
attracts visitors and picnic parties from Whitby, and 
the Oak Tree is the very picture of a rustic hostelry. 
Here you may fancy yourself in a deep wooded glen; 
and, if limited for time, will have an embarrassing 
choice of walks. Arncliffe woods offer cool green 
shades, and a fine prospect from the ridge beyond, 
with the opportunity to visit an ancient British village. 
But few can resist the charm of the Beggar's Bridge, a 
graceful structure of a single arch, which spans the Esk 
in a sequestered spot delightful to the eye and refresh- 
ing to the ear, with the gurgling of water and rustling 
of leaves. There is a legend, too, for additional charm : 
how that a young dalesman, on his way to say farewell 
to his betrothed, was stopped here by the stream swollen 
with a sudden flood, and, spite of his efforts to cross, 
was forced to retrace his steps and cross the sea to seek 
fortune in a distant land. He vowed, if his hopes were 
gratified, to build a bridge on his return ; and to quote 
Mrs. George Dawson's pretty version of the legend : 

" The rover came back from a far distant land, 
And he claimed of the maiden her long-promised hand ; 
But he built, ere he won her, the bridge of his vow, 
And the lovers of Egton pass over it now." 

A pleasant twilight walk among the trees, within 
hearing of the rippling Esk, brought me back to the 
Tunnel in time for the last train to Whitby. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 137 



CHAPTER XIII. 

To Upgang — Enter Cleveland — East Row— The first Alum-Maker — 
Sandsend — Alum- Works — The huge Gap — Hewing the Alum Shale 
— Limestone Nodtdes: Mulgrave Cement — Swarms of Fossils — 
Burning the Shale — Volcanic Phenomena — From Fire to Water — 
The Cisterns — Soaking and Pumping — The Evaporating Pans — The 
Crystallizing Process — The Roching Casks — Brilliant Crystals — A 
Chemical Triumph — Rough Epsoms. 

It was yet early trie next morning when I descended 
from the high road to the shore at Upgang, about two 
miles from Whitby. Here we approach a region of 
manufacturing industry. Wagons pass laden with 
Mulgrave cement, with big, white lumps of alum, 
with sulphate of magnesia; the kilns are not far off, 
and the alum-works at Sandsend are in sight, backed 
by the wooded heights of Mulgrave Park, the seat of 
the Marquis of Normanby. Another half-hour, and 
crossing a beck which descends from those heights, we 
enter Cleveland, of which the North Riding is made 
to say, 

" If she were not here confined thus in me, 

A shire even of herself might well be said to be." 

Hereabouts, in the olden time, stood a temple 
dedicated to Thor, and the place was called Thordisa 
— a name for which the present East Row is a poor 
exchange. The alteration, so it is said, was made by 



138 A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 

the workmen on the commencement of the alum manu- 
facture in 1620. The works, now grimy with smoke, 
are built between the hill-foot and the sea, a short 
distance beyond the beck. 

The story runs that the manufacture of alum was 
introduced into Yorkshire early in the seventeenth 
century by Sir Thomas Chaloner, who had travelled in 
Italy, and there seen the rock-beds from which the 
Italians extracted alum. Riding one day in the neigh- 
bourhood of Guisborough, he noticed that the foliage 
of the trees resembled in colour that of the leaves in 
the alum districts abroad ; and afterwards he commenced 
an alum- work in the hills near that town, sanctioned 
by a patent from Charles I. One account says that he 
smuggled over from the Papal States, concealed in 
casks, workmen who were acquainted with the manu- 
facture, and was excommunicated by the Pope for this 
daring breach of his own monopoly. The Sandsend 
works were established a few years later. Subsequently 
certain courtiers prevailed on the king to break faith 
with Sir Thomas, and to give one-half of the patent 
to a rival, which so exasperated the knight that he 
became a Roundhead, and one of the most relentless 
foes of the king. A great monopoly of the alum- works 
was attempted towards the end of the last century by 
Sir George Colebrooke, who, being an East India 
director, got the name of Shah Allum. His attempt 
failed. 

My request for permission to view the works was 
freely granted, and I here repeat my acknowledgments 
for the favour. The foreman, I was told, took but little 
pains with visitors who came, and said, u Dear me ! 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 139 

How very curious!" and yawned, and wanted to go 
away at the end of ten minutes ; but for any one in 
earnest to see the operations from beginning to end, he 
would spare no trouble. Just the very man for me, I 
thought; so, leaving my knapsack at the office, I fol- 
lowed the boy who was sent to show me the way to 
the mine. Up the hill, and across fields for about half 
a mile, brought us to the edge of a huge gap, which at 
first sight might have been taken for a stone quarry 
partially changed into the crater of a volcano. At one 
side clouds of white sulphureous smoke were rising; 
within lay great heaps resembling brick rubbish ; and 
heaps of shale, and piles of stony balls, and stacks of 
brushwood ; and while one set of men were busily hack- 
ing and hewing the great inner walls, others were 
loading and hauling off the tramway wagons, others 
pumping, or going to and fro with wheelbarrows. 

There was no proper descent from the side to which 
we came, and to scramble down three or four great 
steps, each of twenty feet, with perpendicular fronts, 
was not easy. However, at last I was able to present 
to the foreman the scrap of paper which I had brought 
from the office, and to feel sure that such an honest 
countenance and bright eye as his betokened a willing 
temper. Nor was I disappointed, for he at once ex- 
pressed himself ready to show and explain everything 
that I might wish to see. 

u Let us begin at the beginning," I said ; and he led 
me to the cliff, where the diggers were at work. The 
formation reminded me of what I had seen in the 
quarries at Portland: first a layer of earth, then a hard, 
worthless kind of stone, named the "cap" by the 



140 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

miners ; next a deposit of marlstone and " dogger- 
head," making altogether a thickness of about fifty 
feet; and below this comes the great bed of upper lias, 
one hundred and fifty feet thick; and this lias is the 
alum shale. Where freshly exposed, its appearance 
may be likened to slate soaked in grease: it has a 
greasy or soapy feel between the fingers, but as it 
oxidises rapidly on exposure to the air, the general 
colour of the cliff is brown. Here the shale is not 
worked below seventy-five feet; for every fathom below 
that becomes more and more bituminous, and more 
liable to vitrify when burnt, and will not yield alum. 
At some works, however, the excavation is continued 
down to ninety feet. Embedded in the shale, most 
abundant in the upper twenty-five feet, the workmen 
find nodules of limestone, the piles of balls I had 
noticed from above, about the size of a cricket-ball; 
and of these the well-known Mulgrave cement is made. 
The Marquis, to whom all the land hereabouts belongs, 
requires that his lessees shall sell to him all the lime- 
stone nodules they find. The supply is not small, 
judging from the great heap which I saw thrown aside 
in readiness for carting away. Alum shale prevails in 
the cliffs for twenty-seven miles along the coast of 
Yorkshire, in which are found one hundred and fifty 
kinds of ammonites. 

Besides balls of limestone, the shale abounds in 
fossils. It was in this — the lias — that nearly all the 
specimens, including the gigantic reptiles of the 
ancient world which we saw in the museum at 
Whitby, were found. Every stroke of the pick 
brings them out; and as the shale is soft and easily 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 141 

worked, they are separated without difficulty. You 
might collect a cartload in half a day. For a few 
minutes I felt somewhat like a schoolboy in an 
orchard, and filled my pockets eagerly with the best 
that came in my way. But ammonites and muscles, 
when turned to stone, are very heavy, and before the 
day was over I had to lighten my load : some I placed 
where passers-by could see them; then I gave some 
away at houses by the road, till not more than six re- 
mained for a corner of my knapsack. And these were 
quite enough, considering that I had yet to walk 
nearly three hundred miles. 

After the digging comes the burning. A layer of 
brushwood is made ready on the ground, and upon 
this the shale is heaped to the height of forty or fifty 
feet until a respectable little mountain is formed, com- 
prising three thousand tons, or more. The rear of the 
mass rests against the precipice, and from narrow 
ledges and projections in this the men tilt their 
barrow-loads as the elevation increases. The fire, 
meanwhile, creeps about below, and soon the heap 
begins to smoke, sending out white sulphureous fumes 
in clouds that give it the appearance of a volcano. 

Such a heap was smouldering and smoking at the 
mouth of the great excavation, the sulphate of iron, 
giving off its acid to the clay, converting it thereby 
into sulphate of alumina. All round the base, and for 
a few feet upwards, the fire had done its work, and the 
mass was cooling; but above the creeping glow was 
still active. The colour is changed by the burning 
from brown to light reddish yellow, with a streak of 
darker red running along all the edges of the frag- 



142 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

ments; and the progress of combustion might be 
noted by the differences of colour: in some places 
pale; then a mottled zone, blending upwards with the 
sweating patches under the smoke. Commonly the 
heap burns for three months ; hence a good manager 
takes care so to time his fires that a supply of mine — 
as the calcined shale is technically named — is always 
in readiness. Fifty tons of this burnt shale are required 
to make one ton of alum. 

We turned to the heap which I have mentioned as 
resembling a mound of brick rubbish at a distance. 
One-third of it had been wheeled away to the cisterns, 
exposing the interior, and I could see how the fire had 
touched every part, and left its traces in the change 
of colour and the narrow red border round each cal- 
cined chip. The pieces lie loosely together, so that on 
digging away below the upper part falls of itself. The 
man who was filling the barrows had hacked out a 
cavernous hollow; it seemed that a slip might be 
momentarily expected, for the top overhung threaten- 
ingly, and yet he continued to hack and dig with 
apparent unconcern, and replied to the foreman's cau- 
tion, " Oh ! it won't come down afore to-morrow. It'll 
give warning." 

Now for the watery ordeal. On the sloping ground 
between the cliffs and the sea, shallow pits or cisterns 
are sunk, nearly fifty feet long and twenty wide, and 
so placed, with a bottom sloping from a depth of one 
foot at one end to two feet at the other, as to commu- 
nicate easily with one another by pipes and gutters. 
Whether alum-works shall pay or not, is said to de- 
pend in no small degree on the proper arrangement of 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 143 

the pits. Each pit will contain forty wagon-loads of 
the mine. As soon as it is full, liquor is pumped into 
it from a deep cistern covered by a shed, and this at 
the end of three days is drawn off by the tap at the 
lower end, and when drained the pit is again pumped 
full and soaked for two days. Yet once more is it 
pumped full, but with water — producing first, second, 
and third run, and sometimes a fourth — but the last is 
the weakest, and is kept to be pumped up as liquor on 
a fresh pit for first run. It would be poor economy to 
evaporate so weak a solution. Each pit employs five 
men. 

All this is carried on in the open air, with the sea 
lashing the shore but a few yards off, and all around 
the signs of what to a stranger appears but a rough 
and ready system. And in truth there must be some- 
thing wasteful in it, for all the alum is never extracted. 
After the third or fourth washing, the mine is shovelled 
from the pits and flung away on the beach, where the 
sea soon levels it to a uniform slope. In one of the so- 
called exhausted pits I saw many pieces touched, as it 
were, by hoar frost, which was nothing but minute 
crystals of alum formed on the surface, strongly acid to 
the taste. 

The rest of the process was to be seen down at the 
works, so thither we went; not by the way I came, 
for the foreman, scrambling up the side of the gap, 
conducted me along the ledge at the top of the burn- 
ing heap. He walked through the stifling fumes 
without annoyance, while on me they produced a 
painful sense of choking, with an impulse to run. 
Before we had passed, however, he pushed aside a few 



144 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

of the upper pieces, and showed me the dull glow of 
the fire beneath. Then we had more ledges along the 
face of the cliff, and now and then to creep and jump; 
and we crossed an old digging, which looked ugly 
with its heaps of waste and half-starved patches of 
grass. All the way extends a course of long wooden 
gutters, in which the first-run liquor was flowing in a 
continuous stream to undergo its final treatment — an- 
other trial by fire. 

Then into a low, darksome shed, where from one 
end to the other you see nothing but leaden evapo- 
rating pans and cisterns, some steaming, and all con- 
taining liquor in different states of preparation. That 
from which the most water has been evaporated — the 
concentrated solution — has a large cistern to itself, 
where its tendency to crystallize is assisted by an ad- 
mixture of liquor containing ammonia in solution, 
and immediately the alum falls to the bottom in 
countless crystals. The liquor above them, now be- 
come " mother-liquor," or more familiarly " mothers," 
is drawn offj the crystals are washed clean in water, 
are again dissolved, and once more boiled, mixed with 
gallons of mothers remaining from former boilings. 
When of the required density, the liquor is run off 
from the pan to the "roching casks" — great butts 
rather, big as a sugar hogshead, and taller; and in 
these is left to cool and crystallize after its manner, 
from eight to ten days, according to the season. The 
butts are constructed so as to take to pieces easily, and 
at the right time the hoops are knocked off, the staves 
removed, and there on the floor stands a great white 
cask of alum, solid all round and top and bottom, 
except in its centre a quantity of liquor which has 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 145 

crystallized. This having been drawn off by a hole 
driven through, the mass is then broken to pieces, and 
is fit for the market; and for the use of dyers, leather- 
dressers, druggists, tallow-chandlers; for bakers even, 
and other crafty traders. 

Looked at from the outside, there is no beauty in 
the cask of alum ; but as soon as the interior is exposed, 
then the numberless crystals shooting from every part, 
glisten again as the light streams in upon them ; and 
you acknowledge that the cunning by which they have 
been produced from the dull slaty shale is a happy 
triumph of chemical art — one that will stand a com- 
parison with a recent triumph, the extraction of bril- 
liantly white candles from the great brown peat-bogs 
of Ireland, or from Burmese tar. Perhaps some readers 
will remember the beautiful specimen of alum crystals 
— an entire hajf-tun — that stood in the nave of the 
Great Exhibition. 

Alum is made near Glasgow from the shale of aban- 
doned coal mines, soaked in water without burning. 
After the works had been carried on for some years, 
and the heap of refuse had spread over the neighbour- 
hood to an inconvenient extent, it was found that on 
burning this waste shale, it would yield a second pro- 
fitable supply of alum. Moreover, artificial alum is 
manufactured in considerable quantities from a mixture 
of clay and sulphuric acid. 

In going about the works it was impossible not to be 
struck by the contrast between the sooty aspect of the 
roofs, beams, and gangways, and the whiteness of the 
crystal fringes in the pans, and the snowy patches here 
and there where the vapour had condensed. And in 

L 



146 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

an outhouse wagon-loads of " rough Epsoms" lay in a 
great white heap on the black floor. This rough Ep- 
soms, or sulphate of magnesia, is the crystals thrown 
down by the mother-liquor after a second boiling. 

In our goings to and fro, we talked of other things 
as well as alum; of that other mineral wealth, the 
ironstone, to which Cleveland owes so important a 
development of industry within the past fifteen years. 
The existence of ironstone in the district had long been 
known; but not till the foreman — jointly with his 
father — discovered a deposit near Skinningrave, and 
drew attention to it, was any attempt made to work it. 
Geologically the deposit is known as clay-band iron- 
stone ; hence clay will still make known the fame of 
this corner of Yorkshire, as when the old couplet was 
current — 

" Cleveland in the clay, 9 

Carry in two shoon, bring one away." 

If I liked the foreman at first sight, much more did 
I like him upon acquaintance. He won my esteem as 
much by his frank and manly bearing, as by his pa- 
tient attentions and intelligent explanations; and I 
shook his hand at parting with a sincere hope of 
having another talk with him some day. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 147 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Mulgrave Park — Giant Wade — Ubba's Landing-place — The Boggle- 
boggarts — The Fairy's Chase— Superstitions — The Knight of the 
Evil Lake — Lythe— St. Oswald's Church — Goldsborough — Kettle- 
ness — Rugged Cliffs and Beach — Runswick Bay — Hob-Hole— Cure 
for "Whooping-cough — Jet Diggers — Runswick — Hinderwell — Hor- 
ticultural Ravine — Staithes — A curious Fishing-town — The Black 
Minstrels — A close-neaved Crowd — The Cod and Lobster — Houses 
washed away — Queer back Premises — The Termagants' Duel — 
Fisherman's Talk — Cobles and Yawls — Dutch and French Poachers 
— Tap-room Talk — Reminiscences of Captain Cook. 

I shouldered my knapsack, and paced once more 
up the hill : a long and toilsome hill it is ; but you 
can beguile the way nevertheless. Behind the hedge 
on the left stretches Mulgrave Park, hill and dale, and 
running brooks, and woods wherein the walks and 
drives extend for twenty miles. I had procured a 
ticket of admission at Whitby ; but having spent so 
much time over the alum, had none to spare for the 
park, with its Gothic mansion, groves and gardens, and 
fragment of an old castle on an eminence surrounded 
by woods ; and the Hermitage, the favourite resort of 
picnic parties. According to hoary legend, the original 
founder of the castle was giant Wade, or Wada, a per- 
sonage still talked of by the country folk, who give his 
name to the Roman Causeway which runs from Dunsley 
to Malton, and point out certain large stones at two 
l2 



148 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

villages a few miles apart as Wade's Graves. It was 
in Dunsley Bay, down there on the right, that Ubba 
landed with his sea-rovers in 867, and the hill on which 
he planted his standard is still called Ravenhill. 

And here were the haunts of the boggle-boggarts — 
a Yorkshire fairy tribe. At Kettleness, whither we 
shall come by and by, they used to wash their linen in 
a certain spring, named Claymore Well, and the noise 
of their " bittle" was heard more than two miles off- 
Jeanie, one of these fairies, made her abode in the 
Mulgrave woods, and one day a young farmer, curious 
to see a bogle, mounted his horse, rode up to her bower, 
and called her by name. She obeyed the call, but in 
a towering rage at the intrusion, and the adventurer, in 
terror, turned and fled, with the nimble sprite close at 
his heels. At length, just as he was leaping a brook, 
she aimed a stroke with her wand and cut his horse in 
two ; but the fugitive kept his seat, and fell with the 
foremost half on the farther bank, and the weird crea- 
ture, stopped by the running water, witnessed his 
escape with an evil eye. 

We may remember, too, that Cleveland, remote from 
great thoroughfares, was a nursery of superstitions long 
after the owlish notions died out from other places. Had 
your grandmother been born here she would have been 
able to tell you, that to wear a ring cut from old, long- 
buried coffin-lead, would cure the cramp ; that the water 
from the leaden roof of a church, sprinkled on the skin, 
was a specific for sundry diseases — most efficacious if 
taken from over the chancel. Biscuits baked on Good 
Friday would keep good all the year, and a person ill 
with flux had only to swallow one grated in milk, or 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 149 

brandy-and-water, and recovery was certain. Clothes 
hung out to dry on Good Friday would, when taken 
down, be found spotted with blood. To fling the 
shirt or shift of a sick person into a spring was a sure 
way to foreknow the issue of the malady : if it floated 
— life; if it sank — death. And when the patient was 
convalescent, a small piece was torn from the garment 
and hung on the bushes near the spring ; and springs 
thus venerated were called Rag- wells. 

The lands of Mulgrave were given by King John to 
Peter de Malolacu as a reward for crime — helping in 
the cruel murder of Prince Arthur. By this Knight 
of the Evil-lake — evil heart, rather — the castle was re- 
built; and, pleased with the beauty of the site, he 
named it Moult Grace; but because that he was hard- 
hearted and an oppressor, the people changed the 
c into v ; whence, says tradition, the origin of the pre- 
sent name. 

On the crown of the hill we come to Lythe, which 
— to borrow a term from Lord Carlisle — is a " well- 
conditioned" village, adorned with honeysuckle and 
little flower-gardens. The elevation, five hundred feet, 
affords an agreeable view of Whitby Abbey, and part 
of the intervening coast and country. The church is 
dedicated to St. Oswald, the royal Northumbrian 
martyr ; and inside you may see a monument to Con- 
stantine John, Baron Mulgrave, who as Captain Phipps 
sailed to Spitzbergen in 1773, on one of those arctic 
explorations to which, from first to last, England owes 
no small share of her naval renown. 

Here I struck into a lane for Goldsborough, the 
village which claims one of Wade's graves ; and along 



150 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE, 

byeways down to the shore at Kettleness — a grand cliff 
nearly four hundred feet high, so named from hollows 
or " kettles" in the ground near it. 

Here, descending the steep road to the beach, 
you pass more alum-works, backed by the precipitous 
crags. Everywhere you see signs of fallen rocks and 
landslips. In a slip which happened in 1830, the 
labourers' cottages were carried down and buried ; but 
with sufficient warning to enable the inmates to escape. 
Once the cliff took fire and burned for two years. 
From this point the way along the shore is wilder and 
rougher — more bestrewn with slabs and boulders than 
any we have yet seen. Up and down, in and out ; 
now close under the cliff; now taking to the weedy 
rocks to avoid an overhanging mass that seems about 
to fall. Here and there jet-diggers and quarry men are 
busy high above your head, and make the passage 
more difficult by their heaps of rubbish. Among the 
boulders you will notice some perfectly globular in 
form, as if finished in a lathe. One that I stooped to 
examine was a singular specimen of Nature's handi- 
work. It proved to be a hemisphere only, smooth and 
highly polished, so exact a round on one side, so true 
a flat on the other, that no artificer could have produced 
better. In appearance it resembled quartz. I longed 
to bring it away ; but it was about the bigness of half 
an ordinary Dutch cheese, and weighed some five or 
six pounds. All I could do was to leave it in a safe 
spot for some after-coming geologist. 

Having passed the bluff, we see to the bottom of 
Runswick Bay, and the village of Runswick clustered 
on the farther heights. A harbour of refuge is much 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 151 

wanted on this shelterless coast, and some engineers 
show this to be the best place for it; others contend 
for Redcar, at the mouth of the Tees. Here, again, the 
cliff diminishes in elevation, and the ground slopes up- 
wards to higher land in the rear. About the middle 
of the bay is Hob-Hole, a well-known cave, once more 
than a hundred feet deep, but now shortened by two- 
thirds, and in imminent danger of complete destruction 
by jet-diggers. Cattle used to come down from the 
pastures and betake themselves to its cool recesses in 
hot summer days, and if caught by the tide instinc- 
tively sought the inner end, which, as the floor rose by 
a gentle acclivity, was above the reach of the water. 
I could scarcely help fancying that the half-dozen cows 
standing up to their knees in a salt-water pool were 
ruminating sadly over their lost resort. 

What would the grandmothers say if they could 
return and see the spoiling of Hob's dwelling-place: 
Hob, whose aid they used to invoke for the cure of 
whooping-cough ? Standing at the entrance of the 
cave with the sick child in their arms, they addressed 
him thus : 

" Hob-hole Hob ! 
My bairn's gotten t' kin cough : 
Tak 'toff— tak 'toff!" 

If Hob refused to be propitiated, they tried another 
way, and catching a live hairy worm, they hung it in 
a bag from the child's neck, and as the worm died and 
wasted away so did the cough. If this failed, a roasted 
mouse, or a piece of bread-and-butter administered by 
the hands of a virgin, was infallible; and if the cough 
remained still obstinate, the child, as a last resort, was 



152 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

passed nine times under the belly of a donkey. To 
avoid risk of exposure, it was customary to lead the 
animal to the front of the kitchen fire. 

I found a party of jet-diggers at work in the low 
cliff near the cave, and stayed to watch their proceed- 
ings. Eleven weeks had they been labouring, and 
found nothing. It was astonishing to see what prodi- 
gious gaps they had made in that time, and the heap 
of refuse, which appeared twice as big as all the gaps 
put together. I thought the barrow-man gave himself 
too little trouble to wheel the waste out of the way; 
but he, who knew best, answered, a Bowkers! why 
should I sweat for nothin' ? The sea '11 tak 't all away 
the fust gale." 

Judging from what they told me, jet-digging is 
little, if any, less precarious than gold-digging. Their 
immediate experience was not uncommon ; and at 
other times they would get as much jet in a week as 
paid them for six months' labour. Then, again, after 
removing tons of superincumbent rock, the bed of jet 
would be of the hard stony kind, worth not more than 
half-a-crown a pound; or a party would toil fruitlessly 
for weeks, losing heart and hope, and find themselves 
outwitted at last by another crafty digger, who, scan- 
ning the cliff a few yards off with a keen eye, would 
discover signs, and setting to work, lay bare a stratum 
of jet in a few days. The best kind is thoroughly 
bitumenized, of a perfect uniform black, and resembles 
nothing so much as a tree stem flattened by intense 
pressure, while subjected to great heat without char- 
ring. 

If Bay Town be remarkable, much more so is Runs- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 153 

wick, for the houses may be said to hang on the abrupt 
hill-side, as martens' nests on a wall, among patches of 
ragwort, brambles, gorse, elders, and bits of brown rock, 
overtopped by the summit of the cliff. Boats are hauled 
up on the grass, near the rivulet that frolics down the 
steep ; balks of pine and ends of old ship timbers lie 
about ; clothes hung out to dry flutter in the breeze ; 
and the little whitewashed gables, crowned by thatch 
or red tiles, gleam in the sunshine. There is no street, 
nothing but footpaths, and you continually find your- 
self in one of the little gardens, or at the door of a 
cottage, while seeking the way through to the heights 
above. Two public-houses offer very modest enter- 
tainment, and The Ship better beer than that at 
Kilnsea. About the end of the seventeenth century 
the alum shale, on which the village is built, made a 
sudden slip, and with it all the houses but one. Since 
then it has remained stationary; but with a rock so 
liable to decomposition as alum shale, a site that shall 
never be moved cannot be hoped for. 

The view from the brow in the reverse direction, 
after you have climbed the rough slope of thorns and 
brambles above the village, is striking. Kettleness 
rears its head proudly over the waters; and looking 
inland from one swelling eminence to another, till 
stopped by a long bare hill, which in outline resembles 
the Hog's back, your eye completes the circle and rests 
at last on the picturesque features of the bay beneath. 
There is no finer cliff scenery on the Yorkshire coast 
than from Kettleness to Huntcliff Nab. 

Then turning my face northwards, I explored the 
shortest way to Staithes, now on the edge of the cliff, 



154 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

now cutting across the fields, and leaving on the left 
the village of Hinderwell — once, as is said, St. Hilda's 
well, from a spring in the churchyard which bore the 
pious lady's name. About four miles of rough walk- 
ing brought me to a bend in the road above a deep 
ravine, which, patched or fringed with wood towards 
its upper end, submits its steep flanks to cultivation on 
approaching the sea. Garden plots, fenced and hedged, 
there chequer the ground; and even from the hither 
side you can see how well kept they are, and how pro- 
ductive. Facing the south, and sheltered from the 
bitter north-easters, they yield crops of fruit and 
vegetables that would excite admiration anywhere, and 
win praise for their cultivators. In some of the plots 
you see men at work with upturned shirt-sleeves, and 
you can fancy they do their work lovingly in the 
golden evening light. The ravine makes sharp curves, 
each wider than the last, and the brook spreads out, 
with a few feet of level margin in places at which 
boats are made fast, and you wonder how they got 
there. Then the slope, with its gardens, elders, and 
flowers, merges into a craggy cliff, near which an old 
limekiln comes in with remarkably picturesque effect. 
A few yards farther and the road, descending rapidly, 
brings you in sight of the sea, seemingly shut in be- 
tween two high bluffs, and at your feet, unseen till 
close upon it, lies the little fishing- town of Staithes. 
And a strange town it is ! The main street, narrow 
and painfully ill-paved, bending down to the shore of 
a small bay ; houses showing their backs to the water 
on one side, on the other hanging thickly on a de- 
clivity so steep that many of the roofs touch the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 155 

ground in the rear. Frowsy old houses for the most 
part, with pantile roofs, or mouldy thatch, from which 
here and there peep queer little windows. Some of 
the thatched houses appear as if sunk into the ground, 
so low are they, and squalid withal. Contrasted with 
these, the few modern houses appear better than they 
are; and the draper, with his showy shop, exhibits a 
model which others, whose gables are beginning to 
stand at ease, perhaps will be ambitious to follow. 
Men wearing thick blue Guernsey frocks and sou'- 
westers come slouching along, burdened with nets or 
lobster pots, or other fishing gear; women and girls, 
short-skirted and some barefooted, go to and from the 
beck with " skeels" of water on their head, one or two 
carrying a large washing-tub full, yet talking as they 
go as if the weight were nothing ; and now and then 
a few sturdy fellows stride past, yellow from head to 
foot w T ith a thick ochre-like dust. They come from 
the ironstone diggings beyond Penny Nab — the 
southern bluff. Imagine, besides, that the whole place 
smells of fish, and you will have a first impression of 
Staithes. 

The inns, I thought, looked unpromising ; but the 
Royal George is better than it looks, and if guests are 
not comfortable the blame can hardly lie with Mrs. 
Walton, the hostess — a portly, good-humoured dame, 
who has seen the world, that is, as far as London, and 
laughs in a way that compels all within hearing to 
laugh for company. Though the tap-room and parlour 
be sunk some three feet below the roadway, making 
you notice, whether or not, the stout ankles of the 
water-bearers, you will find it very possible to take 
your ease in your inn. 



156 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

I was just sauntering out after tea when a couple of 
negro minstrels, with banjo and tambourine, came 
down the street, and struck up one of their liveliest 
songs. Instantly, and as if by magic, the narrow 
thoroughfare was thronged by a screeching swarm of 
children, who came running down all the steep alleys, 
and from nooks and doorways in the queerest places, 
followed by their fathers and mothers. I stepped up 
the slope and took a survey of the crowd as they stood 
grinning with delight at the black melodists. Good- 
looking faces are rare among the women; but their 
stature is remarkably erect — the effect probably of 
carrying burdens on the head. How they chattered ! 

"Eh! that caps me!" cried one. 

"That's brave music!" said another. 

And a third, when Tambourine began his contor- 
tions, shrieked, " Eh ! looky ! looky ! he's nobbut a 
porriwiggle ;" which, translated out of Yorkshire into 
English, means, "nought but a tadpole." And to 
see how the weatherbeaten old fishermen chuckled 
and roared with laughter, showing such big white 
teeth all the while, was not the least amusing part of 
the exhibition. Such lusty enjoyment I thought be- 
tokened an open hand ; but when the hat went round 
the greater number proved themselves as " close - 
neaved," to use one of their own words, as misers. 

Near the end of the street, and under the shadow of 
Penny Nab, there is an opening whence you may 
survey the little bay, or rather cove, which forms the 
port of Staithes, well protected by the bluff above 
named, and Colburn Nab, on the north. Here the 
Cod and Lobster public-house, with a small quay in 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 157 

front, faces the sea, as if indifferent to consequences, 
notwithstanding that the inmates are compelled from 
time to time to decamp suddenly from threatened 
drowning. Even as I stood there I was fain to button 
my overcoat against the spray which swept across and 
sprinkled the windows, for there was a heavy " Upper" 
on, and huge breakers came tumbling in with thunder- 
ous roar. You see piles driven here and there, and 
heaps of big stones laid for protection ; and not with- 
out need, you will think, while looking at the backs of 
the houses huddling close around the margin of the 
tide. In the month of February, twenty-seven years 
ago, thirteen houses were swept away at once, and among 
them the one in which Cook was first apprenticed. 
Judging from what Staithes is now, it must have been 
a remarkably primitive and hard-featured place in his 
day. 

Then, crossing over, I threaded the narrow alleys 
and paths to look at the backs of the houses from the 
hill-side. You never saw such queer ins and outs, and 
holes and corners as there are here. Pigsties, little 
back yards, sheds, here and there patches of the hill 
rough with coarse grass and weeds, and everywhere 
boat-hooks and oars leaning against the walls, and 
heaps of floats, tarred bladders, lobster-pots and baskets, 
and nets stretched to dry on the open ground above. ■ 
If you wished to get from one alley to another without 
descending the hill, it would not be difficult to take a 
short cut across the pantiles. Indeed, that seems in 
some places the only way of extrication from the 
labyrinth. 

I was on my way to look at the cove from the side 



158 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

of Colburn Nab, when a woman, rushing from a house, 
renewed a screeching quarrel with her opposite neigh- 
bour, which had been interrupted by the negro inter- 
lude. The other rushed out to meet her, and there 
followed a clamour of tongues such as I never before 
heard — each termagant resolute to outscold the other. 
They stamped, shook their fists and beat the air 
furiously, made mouths at one another, yelled bitter 
taunts, and at last came to blows. The struggle was 
but short, and then the weaker, not having been able 
to conquer by strength of arm, screamed hoarsely, 
88 Never mind, Bet — never mind, you faggot ! I can 
show a cleaner shimmy than you can." And, turning 
up her skirt, she showed half a yard of linen, the clean- 
ness of which ought to have made her ashamed of her 
tongue. A loud laugh followed this sally, and the 
men, having maintained their principle that "it's 
always best to let t' women foight it out," straggled 
away to their lounging-places. 

The beck falls from the ravine into the cove at the 
foot of the Nab, having a level wedge of land between 
it and the cliff. This was more than half covered by 
fishing-boats and the carts of dealers, who buy the fish 
here and sell it in the interior, or convey it to the 
Tunnel Station for despatch by railway. Two smoke- 
houses for the drying of herrings are built against the 
cliff, and in one of these a man was preparing for the 
annual task, and shovelling his coarse-grained salt into 
tubs. u The coarser the better," he said, u because it 
keeps the fish from layin' too close together." A fisher- 
man, who seemed well pleased to have some one to 
talk to, assured me that I was a month too soon : the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 159 

middle of August was the time to see the place as busy- 
as sand-martens. And with an overpowering smell of 
fish, he might have added. Six score boats of one kind 
or another sailed from the cove, and they took a good 
few of fish. Some boats could carry twenty last, and 
at times a last of herrings would fetch ten or eleven 
pounds. In October, '56, the boats were running 
down to Scarbro', when they came all at once into a 
shoal, and was seven hours a sailin' through 'em. One 
boat got twelve lasts in no time, came in on Sunday, 
cleared 'em out, sailed again, and got back with twelve 
more lasts on Wednesday. That was good addlings 
(i, e. earnings). He knowed the crew of one boat who 
got sixty pound a man that season. 

Some liked cobles, and some liked yawls. A coble 
wanted six men and two boys to work her: a yawl 
would carry fifty tons, and some were always out a 
fishin'. Now and then they went out to the Silver 
Pit, an oyster-bed about twenty-five miles from the 
coast. He thought the French and Dutch were poachers 
in the herring season, especially the French. They'd 
run their nets right across the English nets, and pretend 
they didn't know or didn't understand ; and though the 
screw steamer from Dunkirk kept cruising about to 
warn 'em not to come over the line, the English fisher- 
men thought 'twas only to spy out where the most fish 
was, and then let the foreign boats know by signal. 
Yorkshire can't a bear such botherments, and retaliates 
between whiles by sinking the buoy barrels. 

This is an old grievance. In former times no Dutch- 
man was permitted to fish without a license from Scar- 
borough Castle, yet they evaded the regulation con- 



160 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

tinually ; " for/' to quote the old chronicler, " the 
English always granted leave for fishing, reserving the 
honour to themselves, but out of a lazy temper resign- 
ing the gain to others." 

He remembered the gale that swallowed the thirteen 
houses. 'Twas a northerly gale, and that was the only 
quarter that Staithes had to trouble about. Whenever 
the wind blew hard from the north, the Cod and Lobster 
had to get ready to run. But the easterly gales, which 
made everything outside run for shelter, never touched 
the place, and you might row round the port in a skiff 
when collier ships were carrying away their topmasts 
in the offing, or drifting helplessly ashore. He saw the 
thirteen houses washed away, and at the same time 
a coble carried right over the bridge and left high and 
dry on the other side. 

The mouth of the beck would make a good harbour 
for cobles were it not for the bar, a great heap of 
gravel "foreanenst" us, which, by the combined action 
of the stream and tide, was kept circling from side to 
side, and stopping the entrance. It would be all right 
if somebody would build a jetty. 

Returned to my quarters, I preferred a seat in the 
tap-room to the solitude of the parlour. The hour to 
"steck up" shops had struck, and a few of the 
"bettermy" traders had come in for their evening 
pipe and glass of ale. The landlord, who is a jet- 
digger, confirmed all that the three men had told me at 
Runswick: jet-digging was quite a lottery, and not 
unattended with danger. In some instances a man 
would let himself half way down the cliff by a rope to 
begin his work. And the doctor — a talkative gentle- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 161 

man — corroborated the old fisherman's statements. In 
an easterly gale the little port was " as smooth as 
grease," and, if it were only larger, would be the best 
harbour on the eastern coast. He, too, remembered 
the washing away of the thirteen houses, and the con- 
sternation thereby created. Would the sea be satisfied 
with that one mouthful ? was a terrible question in the 
minds of all. 

I had heard that among the few things saved from 
the house in which Cook was apprenticed, was the till 
from which he stole the shilling; but although I met 
with persons who thought the relic was still preserved 
somewhere in the town, not one could say that he had 
ever seen it. As regards the story of the theft, the 
popular version is that Cook, after taking the coin, ran 
away from Staithes. But, according to another version, 
there was no stealing in the case. Tempted by the 
sight of a bright new South-Sea Company's shilling in 
the till, he took it out, and substituted for it one from 
his own pocket; and his master, who combined the 
trades of haberdasher and grocer, was satisfied with the 
boy's explanation when the piece was missed. Cook, 
however, fascinated by the sight of the sea and of 
ships, took a dislike to the counter, and, before he was 
fourteen, obtained his discharge, and was learning the 
rudiments of navigation on board the Freelove, a collier 
ship, owned by two worthy Quakers of Whitby. 



162 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



COPTER XV. 

Last Day by the Sea — Boulby — Magnificent Cliffs — Lofthouse and 
Zachary Moore — The Snake-killer — The Wyvern — Eh ! Packman— 
Skinningrave — Smugglers and Privateers — The Brace's Privileges — 
What the old Chronicler says — Story about a Sea-Man — The Groan- 
ing Creek — Huntcliff Nab — Rosebury Topping — Saltburn — Cormo- 
rant Shooters — Cunning Seals — Miles of Sands — Marske— A memo- 
rable Grave — Redcar — The Estuary of Tees — Asylum Harbour — 
Recreations for Visitors — William Hutton's Description — Farewell 
to the Sea. 

It is the morning of our last day by the sea; and 
a glorious morning it is, with a bright sun, a blue sky, 
and a cool, brisk breeze, that freshens still as the hours 
glide on to noon. It is one of those days when merely 
to breathe, to feel that you are alive, is enjoyment 
enough; when movement and change of scene exert a 
charm that grows into exhilaration, and weariness, the 
envious thief, lags behind, and tries in vain to over- 
take the willing foot and cheerful heart. In such 
circumstances it seems to me that from all around the 
horizon the glowing sunlight streams into one's very 
being laden with the delightfulest influences of all 
the landscapes. 

Though the hill be steep and high by which we 
leave Staithes, there are gaily painted boats lying on 
the grass at the top. You might almost believe them 
to be placed there as indications that the town, now 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. L63 

hidden from sight, really exists below. Northwards, 
the cliffs have a promising look, for they rise to a 
higher elevation (six hundred and sixty feet) than 
any we have yet trodden on this side of Flamborough. 
Again we pass wagon-loads of alum and sulphate, and 
come to the Boulby alum-works, beyond which 
stretches a wild heathery tract, which, rounding 
sharply down to the edge of the cliff] shuts out the 
inland prospect. Up here the breeze is half a gale, 
and the sea view is magnificent. More than a hun- 
dred vessels of different sizes are in sight, the greater 
number bowling along to the southward, with every 
stitch of canvas spread, and so near the shore that you 
can see plainly the man at the wheel, and the move- 
ments of the crew on deck. 

By the roadside runs a stream of alum liquor along 
the wooden trough, and on rounding the bluffj we 
discover more alum-works, on a broad undercliff, with 
troughs, diggings, and refuse heaps, extending farther 
than you can see. You may continue along the broken 
ground below, or mount to the summit by a rude stair 
chopped in the face of the cliff. The higher the 
better, I thought, and scrambled up. It is a strange 
scene that you look down upon: a few lonely cottages, 
patches of garden, and a chaos of heaps, some grass- 
grown, with numerous paths winding among them. 
And now the view opens towards the west, great 
slopes of fields heaving up as waves one beyond the 
other, till they blend with the pale blue hill-range in 
the distance; and glimpses of Hartlepool and Tyne- 
mouth can be seen in the north. 

The Earl of Zetland is the great proprietor here- 
of 



164 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

abouts: the alum-works are his, and to him belongs 
the estate at Lofthouse — a village about two miles 
inland — once owned by the famous Zachary Moore, 
whose lavish hospitality, and eminent qualities of mind 
and heart, made him the theme for tongue and pen 
while Pitt was minister : 

" What sober heads hast thou made ache ! 
How many hast thou kept from nodding ! 
How many wise ones for thy sake 

Have flown to thee and left off plodding !" 

and who, having spent a great fortune, discovered the 
reverse side of his friends' characters, accepted an 
ensign's commission, and died at Gibraltar in the 
prime of his manhood. 

And it was near Lofthouse that Sir John Conyers 
won his name of Snake-killer. A sword and coffin, 
dug up on the site of an old Benedictine priory, were 
supposed to have once belonged to the brave knight 
who " slew that monstrous and poysonous vermine or 
wyverne, an aske or werme which overthrew and 
devoured many people in fight; for that the scent of 
that poison was so strong that no person might abyde 
it." A gray stone, standing in a field, still marks the 
haunt of the worm and place of battle. 

Tradition tells, moreover, of a valiant youth, who 
killed a serpent and rescued an earl's daughter from 
the reptile's cave, and married her ; in token whereof 
Scaw Wood still bears his name. 

As I went on, past Street Houses, diverging hither 
and thither, a woman cried, from a small farm-house, 
"Eh! packman, d'ye carry beuks?" She wanted a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 1 65 

new spelder-beuk* for one of her children. We 
had a brief talk together. She had never been out of 
Yorkshire, except once across the Tees to Stockton, 
twenty-two miles distant. That was her longest 
journey, and the largest town she had ever seen. 
'Twas a gay sight ; but she thought the ladies in the 
streets wore too many danglements. She couldn't 
abear such things as them, for she was one of the aud- 
farrandf sort, and liked lastyj clothes. 

While talking, she continued her preparations for 
dinner, and set one of her children to polish the 
" reckon-crooks." The " reckon" is the crane in the 
kitchen fireplace, to which pots and kettles are sus- 
pended by the " crooks." In old times, when a pot 
was lifted off, the maid was careful to stop the swing- 
ing of the crook, because, whenever the reckon-crooks 
swung the blessed Virgin used to weep. 

Skinningrave — a few houses at the mouth of a 
narrow valley, a brook running briskly to the sea, a 
coast-guard station on the green shoulder of the 
southern cliff — makes up a pleasing scene as you 
descend to the beach. The village gossips can still 
talk on occasion about the golden age of smugglers, 
and a certain parish-clerk of the neighbourhood, who 
used to make the church steeple a hiding-place for his 
contraband goods. Smuggling hardly pays now on 
this coast. They can repeat, too, what they heard in 
their childhood concerning Paul Jones; how that, as 
at Whitby, the folk kept their money and valuables 
packed up, ready to start for the interior, watching 
day and night in great alarm, until at length the 

* Spelling-book. f Old-fashioned. % Lasting. 



166 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

privateers did land, and fell to plundering from house 
to house. But when the fugitives returned they 
found nothing disturbed except the pantries and 
larders. 

This was one of the places where the Bruce, 
proudest of the lords of Cleveladd, had " free fishe- 
ries, plantage, floatage, lagan, jetsom, derelict, and 
other maritime franchises." And an industrious ex- 
plorer, who drew up a report on the district for Sir 
Thomas Chaloner, in that quaint old style which 
smacks of true British liberty, gives us a glimpse of 
Skinningrave morals in his day. The people, he says, 
with all their fish, were not rich ; " for the moste 
parte, what they have they drinke; and howsoever 
they reckon with God, yt is a familiar maner to them 
to make even with the worlde at night, that penni- 
lesse and carelesse they maye go lightly to their 
labour on the morrow morninge." And, relating a 
strange story, he tells us that about the year 1535, 
certain fishers of the place captured a sea-man, and 
kept him " many weekes in an olde house, giving him 
rawe fish to eate, for all other fare he refused. In- 
stead of voyce he skreaked, and showed himself cour- 
teous to such as flocked farre and neare to visit him ; 
faire maydes were wellcomest guests to his harbour, 
whome he woulde beholde with a very earnest coun- 
tenaynce, as if his phlegmaticke breaste had been 
touched with a sparke of love. One day when the 
good demeanour of this newe gueste had made his 
hosts secure of his abode with them, he privily stole 
out of doores, and ere he could be overtaken recovered 
the sea, whereinto he plunged himself; yet as one that 



A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 167 

woulde not unmannerly depart without taking of his 
leave, from the mydle upwardes he raysed his shoul- 
ders often above the waves, and makinge signes of 
acknowledgeing his good entertainment to such as 
beheld him on the shore, as they interpreted yt. 
After a pretty while he dived downe, and appeared 
no more." 

Give me leave, reader, to quote one more passage, in 
which our narrator notices the phenomenon now known 
as the calling of the sea. " The little stream here," he 
says, a serveth as a trunke or conduite to convey the 
rumor of the sea into the neighbouring fleldes ; for 
when all wyndes are whiste, and the sea restes unmoved 
as a standing poole, sometimes there is such a horrible 
groaninge heard from that creake at the least six myles 
in the mayne lande, that the fishermen dare not put 
forth, thoughe thyrste of gaine drive them on, houlding 
an opinion that the sea, as a greedy beaste raginge for 
hunger, desyers to be satisfied with men's carcases." 

I crossed the beach where noisy rustics were loading 
carts from the thick beds of tangle, to the opposite 
cliff, and found a path to the top in a romantic hollow 
behind the point. Again the height increases, and 
presently you get a peep at Handale, traceable by its 
woods ; and Freeburgh Hill, which was long taken for 
a tumulus, appears beyond. After much learned asser- 
tion in favour of its artificial formation, the question 
was settled by opening a sandstone quarry on its side. 
Still higher, and we are on HuntclifT Nab, a precipice 
of three hundred and sixty feet, backed by broad fields 
and pastures. Farther, we come to broken ground, 
and then to a sudden descent by a zigzag path at the 



168 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Saltburn coast-guard station ; and here the noble range 
of cliffs sinks down to one of the pleasantest valleys of 
Cleveland — an outlet for little rivers. Pausing here on 
the brow we see the end of our coast travel, Redcar, 
and the mouth of the Tees five miles distant, and all 
between the finest sandy beach washed by the North 
Sea : level and smooth as a floor. The cliff behind is 
a mere bank, as along the shore of Holderness, and 
there is a greater breadth of plain country under our 
eye than we have seen for some days past. 

Among the hills, picturesquely upheaved in the rear 
of the plain, I recognised the pointed summit of Rose- 
bury Topping ; and with almost as much pleasure as 
if it had been the face of a friend, so many recollections 
did the sight of the cone awaken of youthful days, and 
of circumstances that seemed to have left no impression. 
And therewith came back for a while the gladsome 
bounding emotions that consort with youth's inexpe- 
rience. 

Some time elapsed before I could make up my mind 
to quit the turfy seat on the edge of the cliff, and be- 
take myself to the nether ground. The path zigzags 
steeply, and would be dangerous in places were it not 
protected by a handrope and posts. At the public- 
house below the requisites of a simple dinner can be 
had, and excellent beer. While I ate, two men were 
busy casting bullets, and turning them out to cool in 
the middle of the floor. They were going to shoot 
cormorants along Huntcliff Nab, where the birds lodge 
in the clefts and afford good practice for a rifle. 

Concerning the Nab, our ancient friend describes it 
as " full of craggs and steepe rocks, wherein meawes, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 169 

pidgeons, and sea-fowle breade plentifully; and here 
the sea castinge up peble-stones maketh the coaste 
troublesome to passe." And seals resorted to the rocks 
about its base, cunning animals, which set a sentry to 
watch for the approach of men, and dived immediately 
that the alarm was given. But " the poore women 
that gather cockles and mussels on the sandes, by often 
use are in better credyte with them. Therefore, 
whosoe intends to kill any of them must craftely put 
on the habyte of a woman, to gayne grounde within 
the reache of his peece." 

The sands at the mouth of the valley are furrowed 
and channelled by the streams that here find their out- 
let ; and you will get many a splash in striding across. 
The view of the valley backed by hills and woods is a 
temptation, for yonder lie fair prospects, and the ob- 
scure ruins of Kilton Castle ; but the sea is on the 
other side, and the sands stretch away invitingly before 
us. Their breadth, seen near low water, as when I 
saw them, may be guessed at more than half a mile, 
and from Saltburn to Redcar, and for four or five miles 
up the estuary of the Tees they continue, a gentle 
slope dry and firm, noisy to a horse's foot, yet some- 
thing elastic under the tread of a pedestrian. At one 
time the Redcar races were always held on the broad 
sands, and every day the visitors to the little town re- 
sort to the smooth expanse for their exercise, whether 
on foot or on wheels. For my part, I ceased to regret 
leaving the crest of the cliffs, and found a novel sense 
of enjoyment in walking along the wide-spread shore, 
where the surface is smooth and unbroken except here 
and there a solitary pebble, or a shallow pool, or a patch 



170 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

left rough by the ripples. And all the while a thin 
film, paler than the rest, as if the surface were in 
motion, is drifting rapidly with the wind, and pro- 
ducing before your eyes, on the margin of the low 
cliff, some of the phenomena of blown sand. 

Smugglers liked this bit of the coast, because of the 
easy access to the interior; and many a hard fight has 
here been had between them and the officers of the law 
in former times, and not without loss of life. The low- 
lands, too, were liable to inundation. Marske, of 
which the church has been our landmark nearly all the 
way from Saltburn, was once a marsh. If we mount 
the bank here we shall see the marine hotel, and the 
village, and the mansion of Mr. Pease, who is the rail- 
way king of these parts. And there is Marske Hall, 
dating from the time of Charles I., which, associated 
with the names of Fauconberg and Dundas, has be- 
come historical. In the churchyard you may see the 
graves of shipwrecked seamen, and others indicated by 
a series of family names that will detain you awhile. 
Here in April, 1799 — that fatal year — was buried 
James Cook, the day labourer, and father of the illus- 
trious navigator. And truly there seems something 
appropriate in laying him to rest within hearing of that 
element on which his son achieved lasting renown for 
himself and his country. Providence was kind to the 
old man, and took him away six weeks after that ter- 
rible massacre at Owhyhee, thereby saving his last days 
from hopeless sorrow. 

Numerous were the parties walking, riding, and 
driving on the sands within a mile of Redcar; but so 
far as I could judge, liveliness was not one of their 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 171 

characteristics. Now, the confused line of houses re- 
solves itself into definite form ; and, turning the point, 
you find the inner margin of the sand loose and heavy, 
a short stair to facilitate access to the terrace above, all 
wearing a rough makeshift appearance : the effect, pro- 
bably, of the drift. There is no harbour ; the boats lie 
far off in the shallow water, where embarkation is by 
no means convenient. Once arrived at the place, it 
appeared to me singularly unattractive. 

Wide as the estuary looks, its entrance is narrowed 
by a tongue of sand, Seaton-Snook, similar to the 
Spurn, but seven miles long, and under water, which 
stretches out from the Durham side; and on the hither 
side, off the point where we are standing, you can see 
the long ridges of lias which are there thrust out, as if 
to suggest the use that might be made of them. Twenty 
years ago Mr. Richmond drew up a report on what he 
names an u Asylum Harbour" at Redcar, showing that 
at that time forty thousand vessels passed in a year, 
and that of the wrecks, from 1821 to 1833, four 
hundred and sixty-two would not have happened had 
the harbour then existed. " To examine and trace," he 
remarks, " during a low spring-ebb, the massive founda- 
tions, which seem laid by the cunning hand of Nature 
to invite that of man to finish what has been so excel- 
lently begun, is a most interesting labour. In their 
present position they form the basis on which it is pro- 
jected to raise those mounds of stone by whose means, 
as breakwaters, a safe and extensive harbour will be 
created, with sufficient space and depth of water for a 
fleet of line-of-battle ships to be moored with perfect 
security within their limits, and still leave ample room 



172 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

for merchant vessels." There is no lack of stone in the 
neighbourhood; and seeing what has been accom- 
plished at Portland and Holyhead, there should be no 
lack of money for such a purpose. 

Cockles and shrimps abound along the shore : hence 
visitors may find a little gentle excitement in watching 
the capture of these multitudinous creatures, or grow 
enthusiastic over the return of the salmon-fishers with 
their glistening prey. And in fine weather there are 
frequent opportunities for steam-boat trips along the 
coast. But the charm of the place consists in the 
broad, flat shore, and, looking back along the way you 
came, you will find an apt expression in the lines : 

" Next fishy Redcar view Marske's sunny lands, 
And sands, beyond Pactolus' golden sands ; 
Till shelvy Saltburn, cloth' d with seaweed green, 
And giant Huntcliff close the pleasing scene." 

William Hutton, at the age of eighty-five, journeyed 
hither for a summer holiday, and wrote a narrative of 
his adventures, from which we may get an idea of the 
place as he saw it. " The two streets of Coatham and 
Redcar," he says, " are covered with mountains of drift 
sand, blown by the north-west winds from the shore, 
which almost forbid the foot ; no carriage above a 
wheelbarrow ought to venture. It is a labour to walk. 
If a man wants a perspiring dose, he may procure one 
by travelling through these two streets, and save his 
half-crown from the doctor. He may sport white 
stockings every day in the year, for they are without 
dirt; nor will the pavement offend his corns. The 
sand-beds are in some places as high as the eaves of the 
houses. Some of the inhabitants are obliged every 



A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 1 73 

morning to clear their doorway, which becomes a pit, 
unpleasant to the housekeeper and dangerous to the 
traveller." 

I saw no sand-beds up to the eaves, but there were 
indications enough that the sand-drift must be a great 
annoyance. The town is comprised chiefly in one long, 
wide street, which looks raw and bleak, even in the 
summer. There are a few good shops at the end 
farthest from the sea; and if you ask the bookseller to 
show you the weekly list of visitors, it will perhaps 
surprise you to see the number so great. The church 
was built in 1829; before that date church-goers had 
to walk the three miles to Marske. 

And now my travel from Humber to Tees is accom- 
plished, and I must say farewell to the wide rolling 
main with its infinite horizon — to the ships coming up 
from the unseen distance, and sailing away to the 
unseen beyond — to the great headlands, haunted by 
swift- winged birds, which, when winds are still, behold 
a double firmament, stars overhead and stars beneath ; 
and so, not without reluctance, I turn my back on 
what the rare old Greek calls 

" The countless laughter of the salt-sea waves." 



174 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Leave Redcar — A Cricket-Match — Coatham — Kirkleathani — The~ Old 
Hospital — The Library — Sir William Turner's Tomb — Cook, Omai, 
and Banks — The Hero of Dettingen — Yearby Bank — Upleatham — 
Guisborough — Past and Present — Tomb of Robert Bruce — Priory 
Ruins — Hemingford, Pursglove, and Sir Thomas Chaloner — Pretty 
Scenery — The Spa — More Money, less Morals — What George Fox's 
Proselytes did — John Wesley's Preaching — Hutton-Lowcross — 
Rustics of Taste — Rosebury Topping — Lazy Enjoyment — The Pro- 
spect : from Black-a-moor to Northumberland — Cook's Monument — 
Canny Yatton — The Quakers' School — A Legend — Skelton — Sterne 
and Eugenius — Visitors from Middlesbro' — A Fatal Totto — Newton 
— Diggers' Talk — Marton, Cook's Birthplace — Stockton — Darlington. 

However, we will be of good cheer, for Nature 
forsakes not the trustful heart. Hill and dale, breezy 
moorland, craggy mountains, and lovely valleys stretch 
away before us well-nigh to the western tides; and 
there we shall find perennial woods, where rustling 
leaves and rushing waterfalls will compensate us for 
the loss of the voice of the sea. 

I started for Guisborough, taking a short cut across 
the fields to Kirkleatham. In the first field, on the 
edge of the town, I saw what accounted to me for the 
lifelessness of Redcar — a cricket-match. As well mip-ht 

o 

one hope to be merry at a funeral as at a game of 
cricket, improved into its present condition; when the 
ball is no longer bowled, but pelted, and the pelter's 



A MONTH EsT YORKSHIRE. 175 

movements resemble those of a jack-pudding; when 
gauntlets must be worn on the hands and greaves on 
the shins; and other inventions are brought into use 
to deprive pastime of anything like enjoyment. That 
twenty-two men should ever consent to come together 
for such a mockery of pleasure, is to me a mystery. 
Wouldn't Dr. Livingstone's Makalolo laugh at them ! 
The only saving point attending it is, that it involves 
some amount of exercise in the open air. No wonder 
that the French duchess, who was invited to see a 
game, sent one of her suite, after sitting two hours, to 
inquire " vhen the creekay vas going to begin." The 
Guisborough band was doing its best to enliven the 
field; but I saw no exhilaration. Read Miss Mitford's 
description of a cricket-match on the village green ; 
watch a schoolboys' game, consider the mirth and 
merriment that they get out of it, and sympathise with 
modern cricket if you can. 

The fields are pleasant and rural; haymakers are at 
work ; we cross a tramway, one of those laid to facili- 
tate the transport of Cleveland ironstone; we get 
glimpses of Coatham, and come nearer to the woods, 
and at length emerge into the road at Kirkleatham. 
Here let us turn aside to look at the curious old 
hospital, built in 1676 by Sir William Turner, citizen 
and woollen-draper of London, and lord mayor, more- 
over, three years after the Great Fire. There it stands, 
a centre and two wings, including a chapel, a library 
and museum, and comfortable lodging for ten old 
men, as many old women, and the same number of 
boys and girls. The endowment provides for a good 
education for the children, and a benefaction on their 



176 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

apprenticeship; and the services of a chaplain. Among 
the curiosities shown to visitors are a waxen effigy of 
Sir William, wearing the wig and band that he himself 
once wore; the likeness of his son and heir in the 
stained glass of one of the windows; St. George and 
the Dragon, singularly well cut out of one piece of 
boxwood; the fragment of the tree from Newby Park, 
presented by Lord Falconberg, on which appears, 
carved — 

This Tre long time witnese beare 
Of toww lovrs that did walk heare. 

It was no random hand that selected the library; 
some of the books are rare. One who loves old authors 
will scan the shelves with pleasure. " I could easily 
have forgotten my dinner in this enchanting room," 
says William Hutton. Interesting in another way is 
the ledger of the worthy citizen and woollen- draper 
here preserved : it shows how well he kept his accounts, 
and that he was not vainglorious. On one of the pages, 
where the sum of his wealth appears as 50,000/., he 
has written, " Blessed be the Almighty God, who has 
blest me with this estate." 

The church, not far from the hospital, is worth a 
visit. Conspicuous in the chancel are the monuments 
of the Turners, adorned with sculptures and long in- 
scriptions. Of Sir William, we read that he lies 
buried " amongst the poor of his hospital — the witnesses 
of his piety, liberality, and humility." There is the 
mausoleum, erected by Cholmley Turner, in 1740, to 
the memory of his son, who died at Lyon, of which 
Schumacher was the sculptor, and near it the tomb of 
Sir Charles Turner, the last of the family. Cook, ac- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 177 

companied by Omai and Sir Joseph Banks, paid him 
a visit in 1775. Some of the church plate was pre- 
sented by Sir William; but that used for the com- 
munion was thrown up by the sea about a century ago, 
within the privilege of the lord of the manor. 

This quiet little village of Kirkleatham was the 
birthplace of Tom Brown the famous dragoon, who 
at the battle of Dettingen cut his way single-handed 
into the enemy's line, recovered the standard of the 
troop to which he belonged, and fought his way back 
in triumph; by which exploit he made his name ring 
from one end of England to the other, and won a 
place for his likeness on many a sign-board. You 
may see his portrait here if you will, and his straight 
basket-hilted sword. 

After a glance at the Hall, a handsome building, 
we return to the road, and ascend Yearby bank — a 
bank which out of Yorkshire would be called a hill. 
Look back when near the top, and you will have a 
pleasing prospect: Kirkleatham nestled among the 
trees, the green fields refreshing to the eye; Eston 
Nab and the brown estuary beyond. Here we are 
on the verge of the Earl of Zetland's richly wooded 
estate — 

" Behold Upleatham, slop'd with graceful ease, 
Hanging enraptur'd o'er the winding Tees" — 

and the breeze makes merry among the branches that 
overhang us on both sides till a grand fragment of a 
ruin appears in sight — the tall east window of a once 
magnificent Priory — rising stately in decay from amidst 
the verdure of a fertile valley, and we enter the small 
market-town of Guisborough. 



1 78 A MONTH W YOKKSHIEE. 

Having refreshed myself at The Buck, I took an 
evening stroll, not a little surprised at the changes 
which the place had undergone since I once saw it. 
Then it had the homely aspect of a village, and scarce 
a sound would you hear after nine at night in its long 
wide street : now at both ends new houses intrude on 
the fields and hedgerows, the side lanes have grown 
into streets lit by gas and watched by policemen. 
Tippling iron-diggers disturb the night with noisy 
shouts when sober folk are a-bed, and the old honest 
look has disappeared for ever. In the olden time it 
was said, "The inhabitants of this place are observed 
by travellers to be very civil and well bred, cleanly in 
dressing their diet, and very decent in their houses." 
The old Hall is gone, but the gardens remain: you 
see the ample walnut-trees and the primeval yew 
behind the wall on your way to the churchyard. 
Seven centuries have rolled away since that Norman 
gateway was built, and it looks strong enough to stanpi 
another seven. Under the shadow of those trees was 
a burial-place of the monks : now the shadow falls on 
mutilated statues and other sculptured relics, and on 
the tomb of Robert Brus, one of the claimants of the 
Scottish throne and founder of the abbey, who was 
buried here in 1294. Even in decay it is an admirable 
specimen of ancient art. 

From the meadow adjoining the churchyard you 
get a good view of the great east window, or rather of 
the empty arch which the window once filled; and 
looking at its noble dimensions, supported by but- 
tresses, flanked by the windows of the aisles, and still 
adorned with crumbling finials, you will easily believe 
what is recorded of Guisborough Priory — that it was 



A MONTH m YOKKSHIRE. 179 

the richest in Yorkshire. It was dedicated to St. 
Augustine, and when the sacred edifice stood erect in 
beauty, the tall spire pointing far upwards, seen miles 
around, many a weary pilgrim must have invoked a 
blessing on its munificent founder — a Bruce of whom 
the Church might well be proud. 

Hemingford, whose chronicle of events during the 
reigns of the first three Edwards contains many curious 
matters of ecclesiastical history, was a canon of Guis- 
borough; and among the priors we find Bishop Purs- 
glove, him of whom our ancient gossip Izaak makes 
loving mention. Another name associated with the 
place is Sir Thomas Chaloner, eminent alike in exer- 
cises of the sword, and pen, and statesmanship. It 
was there in the neighbourhood that he discovered 
alum, as already mentioned, led thereto by observing 
that the leaves of the trees about the village were not 
so dark a green as elsewhere, while the whitish clay 
soil never froze, and " in a pretty clear night shined 
and sparkled like glass upon the road-side." 

Skeletons and stone coffins have been dug up from 
time to time, and reburied in the churchyard. On 
one occasion the diggers came upon a deposit of silver 
plate; and from these and other signs the presence of 
a numerous population on the spot in former days has 
been inferred. Our quaint friend, who has been more 
than once quoted, says : " Cleveland hath been won- 
derfully inhabited more than yt is nowe . . . nowe 
all their lodgings are gone ; and the country, as a 
widow, remayneth mournful." And among the local 
traditions, there is the not uncommon one, which 
hints obscurely at a subterranean passage, leading 

n2 



180 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

from the Priory to some place adjacent, within which 
lay a chest of gold guarded by a raven. 

Situate near the foot of a finely-wooded range of 
hills, the ruin shows effectively with the green heights 
for a background. More delightful than now must 
the prospect have been in the early days, and even 
within the present century, when no great excavations 
of ironstone left yellow blots in the masses of foliage. 

The sun went down while I sauntered about, and 
when I took my last look at the great east window 
the ruddy blaze streamed through its lofty space, 
and as each side grew dark with creeping glooms, 
filled it with quivering beams whereunto all the glory 
of glass would be but a mockery. 

Guisborough may claim to rank among watering- 
places, for it has a spa, with appliances for drinking 
and bathing, down in a romantic nook of Spa Wood, 
watered by Alum- work beck. The walk thither, and 
onwards through Waterfall wood to Skelton, is one of 
the prettiest in the neighbourhood. And on the hill- 
slopes, Bellman bank — formerly Bellemonde — still 
claims notice for pleasing scenery. The medicinal pro- 
perties of the spring were discovered in 1822. The 
water, which is clear and sparkling, tastes and smells 
slightly of sulphur and weak alkaline constituents, and 
is considered beneficial in diseases of the skin and in- 
digestion. And in common with other small towns in 

o 

Yorkshire, Guisborough has a free grammar-school, 
which, at least, keeps alive the memory of its founder. 
Mine host of The Buck said, as we talked together 
later in the evening about the changes that had taken 
place, that although more money came into the town 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 181 

than in years gone by, he did not think that better 
habits or better morals came in along with it. A 
similar remark would be made wherever numbers of 
rude labourers earn high wages. Even in the good 
old times there was something to complain of. George 
Fox tells us, concerning his proselytes in Cleveland, 
that they fell away from their first principles and took 
to ranting ; and at the time of his later visits " they 
smoked tobacco and drank ale in their meetings, and 
were grown light and loose." And John Wesley, on 
his first visit to Guisborough, in 1761, found what was 
little better than practical heathenism. He preached 
from a table standing in the market-place, where 
u there was," as he writes, " so vehement a stench of 
stinking fish as was ready to suffocate me." The people 
61 roared ;" but as the zealous apostle of Methodism 
went on in his sermon they gradually became over- 
awed, and listened in silence. Did their forefathers 
ever roar when Paulinus preached to them from a 
mossy rock, or under the shadow of a spreading oak? 
Wesley, however, made an impression, and followed it 
up by visits in four subsequent years. 

At any rate, there was no noise to disturb the 
Sunday quiet when I went forth on the morrow. 
While passing along the street I noticed many cot- 
tagers reading at their doors, and exposing a pair 
of clean white shirt-sleeves to the morning sun. Turn- 
ing presently into a road on the left, which rises gently, 
you get an embowered view of the town, terminated 
by the soaring arch. Then we come to Hut ton Low- 
cross, a pleasant hamlet, which suggests a thought of 
the days of old, for it once had an hospital and a Cis- 



182 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

tercian nunnery. Hutton joined to the name of a 
village is a characteristic of Cleveland. In one instance 
— a few miles from this — it helps out an unflattering 
couplet : 

" Hutton Rudby, Entrepen, 
Ear more rogues than honest men." 

We cross the railway near a station, which, as a 
cottager told me, is "Mr. Pease's station; built for 
hisself, and not for everybody ;" and take a bridle road 
leading to the hill. I fell in with a couple of rustics, 
who were able to enjoy the scenery amid which they 
had lived for years. They lay under a tree, at a spot 
open to the prospect down the valley; and as I com- 
mended their choice, one replied, " I do like to come 
and set here of a Sunday better than anything else. 
Tis so nice to hear the leaves a-rustlin' like they do 
now." But the view there was nothing to what I 
should see from the hill-top: there couldn't be a 
prettier sight in England than that. 

I felt willing to believe them; and a few minutes 
later strode from the steep, narrow lane, where ferns, 
foxgloves, wild roses, and elders overhang the way, to 
the open expanse of Guisborough moors. Here a track 
runs along the undulating slope to the foot of the hills, 
which roll away on the left to the wild region of 
Black-a-moor, with many a pleasant vale and secluded 
village between, while on the right spreads the cul- 
tivated plain, of which, ere long, w r e shall get a wider 
view. For now Rosebury Topping comes clear in 
sight, from gorse-patched base to rocky apex, and your 
eye begins to select a place for ascent. It is approach- 
able on all sides ; no swamp betrays the foot, but the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 183 

steepness in some places compels you to use hands as 
well as feet. The morning was already hot, and I was 
fain to sit down in the belt of bracken above the gorse 
and breathe awhile, glad to have climbed beyond reach 
of the flies. From the fern you mount across clean, 
soft turf to the bare wall of rock which encircles the 
northern half of the summit, where the breeze of the 
plain is a brisk wind, cooling and invigorating as it 
sweeps across. I threw off my knapsack, and choosing 
a. good resting-place, lay down in idle enjoyment of 
being able to see far enough. 

Who that has travelled knows not what an enjoy- 
ment it is to recline at length on a hill- top, the head 
reposing on a cushion of moss, and to have nothing to 
do but let the eye rove at will over the widespread 
landscape below ? Sheltered by the rock, you breathe 
the coolness of upper air without its rapid chill, and 
indulge for a while in lazy contemplation. It is the 
very luxury of out-door existence. Perhaps you are 
somewhat overcome by the labour of the ascent, and 
unconsciousness steals gently on you; and a snatch of 
slumber in such a spot, while the winds whisper of 
gladness in your ear, and a faint hush floats to and fro 
among the blades of grass, is a pleasure which can be 
imagined only by one who beholds at his awaking the 
blue sky and the broad earth of the great Giver. 

At length curiosity prevails. Here we are a thou- 
sand and twenty-two feet above the sea — an elevation 
that sounds small after Switzerland and Tyrol; but a 
very little experience of travelling convinces one that 
the highest hills are not those which always command 
the most pleasing views. Standing on the top of the 



184 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

crag you may scan the whole ring of the horizon, from 
the sea on the east to the high summits of the west; 
from the bleak ridges of Black-a-moor to the headlands 
of Northumberland, seen dimly through the smoky 
atmosphere of the Durham coal-fields. 

Considering, reader, that I may please myself at 
times, as well as you, I borrow again from our honest 
friend, whose admiration of the picturesque appears to 
have equalled his ability to note the useful. " There 
is," he says, " a most goodly prospecte from the toppe 
of thys hyll, though paynefully gayned by reason of 
the steepnesse of yt. . . There you may see a vewe the 
like whereof I never saw, or thinke that any traveller 
hath seen any comparable unto yt, albeit I have 
shewed yt to divers that have paste through a greate 
part of the worlde, both by sea and land. The vales, 
rivers, great and small, swelinge hylls and mountaynes, 
pastures, meadows, woodes, cornefields, parte of the 
Bishopricke of Durham, with the newe porte of Tease 
lately found to be safe, and the sea replenyshed with 
shippes, and a most pleasant flatt coaste subjecte tonoe 
inundation or hazarde make that countrye happy if the 
people had the grace to make use of theire owne hap- 
pinesse, which may be amended if it please God to 
send them trafique and good example of thrifte." All 
this is still true; but Tees has now other ports, and 
Middlesborough, which has grown rapidly as an Ame- 
rican town, and the iron furnaces, spread a smoky veil 
here and there across the landscape, which, when our 
narrator looked down upon it, lay everywhere clear 
and bright in the sunshine. 

The name of the hill is said to be derived from Boss, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 185 

a heath or moor ; Burg, a fortress ; and Toppen, 
Danish for apex. If you incline to go back to very 
early days — as the Germans do — try to repeople the 
rows of basin-like pits which, traceable around the 
slope of the hill, are, so the students of antiquity tell 
us, the remains of ancient British dwellings. Were 
they inhabited when the Brigantes first mustered to 
repel the Romans? Rebuild the hermitage which a 
solitary once constructed here in the rock, which 
afterwards was known as the smith's forge or cobbler's 
shop; and restore the crevice which, known afar as 
Wilfrid's needle, tempted many a pilgrim to the ex- 
piatory task of creeping through the needle's eye. No 
traces of them are now left, for the remains which 
Time respected were destroyed some years ago by 
quarrymen, and with them the perfect point of the 
cone. 

Rosebury Topping was once talked of as the best 
site for a monument to the memory of Cook, where it 
would be seen from his birthplace and for miles around. 
But another spot was chosen, and looking to the south- 
east you see the tall, plain column on Easby heights, 
about three miles distant. It was erected in 1827, at 
the cost of Mr. Robert Campion, of Whitby. At the 
foot of the hill, in the same direction, partly concealed 
by trees, and watered by the river Leven, lies the 
village of Great Ayton — canny Yatton — where Cook 
went to school after exhausting Dame Walker's les- 
sons. In the churchyard is a stone, which records the 
death of Cook's mother, and of some of his brothers 
and sisters, supposed to have been wrought by his 
father, who was a working mason. It is said, however, 



186 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

that the old man was unable to read until the age of 
seventy-five, when he learned in order that he might 
have the pleasure of reading the narrative of his son's 
voyages of discovery. Of other noteworthy objects in 
the village are a monument to Commodore Wilson in 
the church ; a Chapel-well of the olden time ; and an 
agricultural school, with seventy-five acres of good 
land attached, belonging to the Quakers. Farming 
work and in-doors work are there taught to boys and 
girls in a thoroughly practical way, carrying out the 
intentions of the chief promoter, who gave the land 
and 5000/. to establish the institution. 

A few yards below the rocks a spring trickles slowly 
into a hollow under a stone, but the quantity of water 
is too small to keep itself free from the weeds and scum 
which render it unfit for drinking. It can hardly be 
the fatal spring of the tradition, wherein is preserved 
the memory of a Northumbrian queen and Prince 
Oswy, her son. Soothsayers had foretold the boy's 
death by drowning on a certain day: the mother, to 
keep him from harm, brought him to this lofty hill- 
side early on the threatened day, where, at all events, 
he would be in no danger from water. Fondly she 
talked with him for a while and watched his play ; but 
drowsiness stole over her and she fell asleep. By-and- 
by she woke, and looked hastily round for her dar- 
ling. He was nowhere to be seen. She flew hither 
and thither, searching wildly, and at last found him 
lying dead, with his face in the spring. 

Looking to the north-east we see Skelton, backed 
by the Upleatham woods. Though but a speck in 
the landscape, it has contributed more to history than 
places which boast acres of houses. " From this little 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 187 

nook of Cleveland/' says the local historian, u sprang 
mighty monarchs, queens, high-chancellors, arch- 
bishops, earls, barons, ambassadors, and knights, and, 
above all, one brilliant and immortal name — Robert 
Bruce." We hear of a Robert de Brus, second of the 
name, trying to dissuade David of Scotland from 
awaiting the attack of the English army near North- 
allerton ; but the king chose to fight, and lost, as we 
have already read, the Battle of the Standard. And 
the sixth baron, Peter de Brus, was one of the reso- 
lute band who made his mark at Runnymede, and 
helped to wrest the right of liberty from a royal 
craven. 

Then taking a stride to later years, we find the 
author of Crazy Tales, John Hall Stevenson, the oc- 
cupant of Skelton Castle, an esquire hospitable and 
eccentric, the Eugenius of Sterne, who was his willing 



guest : 



In this retreat, whilom so sweet, 
Once Tristram and his cousin dwelt. 



There it was that Sterne bribed a boy to tie the 
weathercock with its point to the west, hoping there- 
by to lure the host from his chamber; for Eugenius 
would never leave his bed while the wind blew from 
the east, even though good company longed for his 
presence. 

In one of his poems the " crazy" author describes 
the hill country such as we see it stretching away 
beyond Cook's monument: 

" Where the beholder stands confounded 
At such a scene of mountains bleak ; 

Where nothing goes 
Except some solitary pewit, 

And carrion crows, 
That seem sincerely to rue it ; 



188 A MONTH IN YORKSHIKE. 

Where nothing grows, 
So keen it blows, 
Save here and there a graceless fir, 

From Scotland with its kindred fled, 
That moves its arms and makes a stir, 
And tosses its fantastic head." 

On Eston Nab, that bold hill between us and the 
Tees, is an ancient camp, and graves supposed to be 
two thousand years old. Kildale, in the opposite 
direction, had once a diabolical notoriety; for there 
the devil played many a prank, and drank the church- 
well dry, so that the priest could get no holy water. 
Ingleby Manor, an antique Tudor house, belonged to 
the Foulis family, who gave a noteworthy captain to 
the army of the Parliament. And other historic 
names — the D'Arcys, Eures, Percys, and Baliols — 
all had estates overlooked by Rosebury. Wilton 
Castle, not far from the foot of Eston Nab, was built 
by Sir John Lowther, about fifty years ago, on the 
site of a fortress once held by the Bulmers. 

Now to return for a moment to the hill itself : the 
topmost rocks are of the same formation as those we 
saw stretching into the sea at Redcar, uptilted more 
than a thousand feet in a distance of ten miles. And 
lower down, as if to exemplify the geology of the 
North Riding in one spot, a thick stratum of alum- 
rock is found, with ironstone, limestone, jet and coal, 
and numerous fossil shells. And it illustrates me- 
teorological phenomena, for, from time immemorial, 
weatherwise folk have said, 

" When Rosebury Topping wears a cap, 
Let Cleveland then beware a clap." 

More than an hour slipped away while I lounged 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 189 

and loitered, making the round of the summit again 
and again, till it seemed that the landscape had be- 
come familiar to me. Then the solitude was broken 
by the arrival of strangers, who came scrambling up 
the hill, encouraging one another with cheerful voices. 
They gained the rocks at last, panting; two families 
from Middlesborough, husbands, wives, boys and girls, 
and a baby, with plenty to eat and drink in their 
baskets, come from the murky town to pass the Sun- 
day on the breezy hill-top. How they enjoyed the 
pure air and the wide prospect; and how they won- 
dered to find room for a camp-meeting on a summit 
which, from their homes, looked as if it were only a 
blunt point ! They told me that a trip to Rosebury 
Topping was an especial recreation for the people of 
Middlesborough — a town which, by the way, is built 
on a swampy site, where the only redeeming feature 
is ready access to a navigable river. I remember what 
it was before the houses were built. A drearier spot 
could not be imagined : one of those places which, as 
Punch says, " you want never to hear of, and hope 
never to see." 

" 'Tis frightful to see how fast the graves do grow 
up in the new' cemetery," said one of the women, 
whose glad surprise at the contrast between her home 
and her holiday could hardly express itself in words. 
u It can't be a healthy place to bring up a family in. 
That's where we live, is it — down there, under all 
that smoke ? Ah ! if we could only come up here 
every day ! " 

Middlesborough, as we can see from far off, is now 
a large town, numbering nearly 8000 inhabitants in 



190 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIEE. 

1851, and owes its sudden growth to coal and iron. 
There the smelting furnaces, roaring night and day, 
convert hundreds of tons of the Cleveland hills every 
week into tons of marketable iron. The quantity 
produced in 1856 in the Cleveland district was 
180,000 tons. And there is the terminus of the 
"Quakers' Railway;" a dock, of nine acres, where 
vessels can load at all times of the tide; an inge- 
nious system of drops for the coal; branch railways 
running in all directions ; and a great level of fifteen 
acres, on which three thousand wagons can stand at 
once. 

I stayed two hours on the hill-top, then taking a di- 
rect line down the steepest side, now sliding, now roll- 
ing, a very few minutes brought me to the village of 
Newton at the foot. With so sudden a change, the 
heat below seemed at first overpowering. In the 
public-house, which scrupled not to open its door to a 
traveller, I found half a dozen miners, who had 
walked over from a neighbouring village to drink their 
pint without molestation. Each recommended a dif- 
ferent route whereby the ten miles to Stockton might 
be shortened. One insisted on a cut across the fields 
to Nuntharp. 

My ear caught at the sharp twang of the ar— a 
Yorkshire man would have said Nunthurp — and turn- 
ing to the speaker I said, " Surely that's Berkshire ?" 

" Ees, 'tis. I comes not fur from Read'n'." 

True enough. Tempted by high wages in the north, 
he had wandered from the neighbourhood of Our Village 
up to the iron-diggings of Cleveland. I took it for 
granted that, as he earned more than twice as much as 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 191 

he did at home, he saved in proportion. But no ; he 
didn't know how 'twas ; the money went somehow. 
Any way he didn't save a fardin' more than he did in 
Berkshire. I ventured to reply that there was little 
good in earning more if one did not save more, when a 
tall brawny fellow broke in with, " Look here, lad. I'd 
ruther 'am fifty shillin's a week and fling 'em right of! 
into that pond there, than 'arn fifteen to keep." 

Just the retort that was to be expected under the 
circumstances. It embodies a touch of proud senti- 
ment in which we can all participate. 

I found the short cut to Nunthorp, struck there 
the high road, and came in another hour to Marton — 
the birthplace of Cook. It is a small village with a 
modernised church, and a few noble limes overshadow- 
ing the graves. The house where the circumnavigator 
was born was little better than a clay hovel of two rooms. 
It has long since disappeared ; but the field on which it 
stood is still called "Cook's Garth." The parish re- 
gister contains an entry under the date November 3rd, 
1728: "James, ye son of James Cook, day-labourer, 
baptized." The name of Mary Walker, aged 89, ap- 
pears on one of the stones in the churchyard ; she it 
was who taught the day-labourer's son to read while 
he was in her service, and who has been mistakenly 
described as Dame Walker, the schoolmistress. 

I caught the evening train at Stockton, which travel- 
ling up the Durham side of the Tees — past Yarm, 
where Havelock's mother was born — past the " hell 
kettles" and Dinsdale Spa, where drinking the water 
turns all the silver yellow in your pockets — and so to 
Darlington, where I stayed for the night. 



192 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Locomotive, Number One — Barnard Castle — Baliol's Tower — From 
Canute to the Duke of Cleveland — Historic Scenery — A surprised 
Northumbrian — The bearded Hermit — Beauty of Teesdale — Egliston 
Abbey — The Artist and his Wife — Dotheboys Hall — Rokeby — 
Greta Bridge — Mortham Tower — Brignall Banks — A Pilgrimage to 
"Wycliffe — Fate of the Inns — The Felon Sow— A Journey by Omni- 
bus — Lartington — Cotherstone — Scandinavian Traces — Romaldkirk 
— Middleton-in-Teesdale — "Wild Scenery — High Force Inn — The 
Voice of the Fall. 

Facing the entrance to the railway station, elevated 
on a pedestal of masonry, stands the first locomotive — 
Number One. With such machines as that did the 
Quakers begin in 1823 to transport coal from the mines 
near Darlington to Middlesborough along their newly- 
opened railway. Compared with the snorting giants 
of the Great Western, its form and dimensions are 
small and simple. No glittering brass or polished steel 
bedeck its strength ; it is nothing but a black boiler, 
mounted on wheels, with three or four slender working- 
rods standing up near one end, and the chimney with 
its saw-toothed top at the other. Yet, common as it 
looks, it is one of George Stephenson's early triumphs : 
one of the steps by which he, and others after him, 
established more and more the supremacy of mind over 
mere brute matter. It was a happy thought to preserve 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 193 

Number One on the spot where enlightened enterprise 
first developed its capabilities, 

Tees is one of those streams — the " silly few" — which 
owe a divided allegiance, watering two counties at once. 
Rising high amidst the wildest hills of the north-west, 
it takes a course of eighty-three miles to the sea through 
many scenes of romantic beauty. Yesterday we looked 
down from Rosebury on the last two or three leagues 
of its outfall ; to-day, if all go well, we shall see the 
summit from which it springs. It is a glorious morn- 
ing; the earliest train arrives, interrupts our examina- 
tion of the old locomotive, and away we go to break- 
fast at Barnard Castle, on the Durham side of the 
river. 

There is so much of beautiful and interesting in the 
neighbourhood, scenes made classic by the pen of 
Scott, that I chose to pass the day in rambling, and 
journey farther in the evening. The town itself, 
old-fashioned in aspect, quiet enough for grass to grow 
here and there in the streets, was one of the ancient 
border-towns, and paid the penalty of its position. It 
has a curious market-cross, and touches of antiquity 
in the byeways ; and owing to something in its former 
habits or history, is a butt for popular wit. " Barney- 
Cassel, the last place that God made," is one way of 
mentioning the town by folk in other parts of the 
county ; if you meet with a fellow more uncouth than 
usual, he is " Barney-Cassel bred ; " any one who shoots 
with the long bow is silenced with " That wunna do y 
that's Barney-Cassel;" and as Barney-Cassel farmers 
may be recognised by the holes in their sacks, so may 
the women by holes in their stockings. 





194 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

The pride of the town is the castle — ruined remains 
of the stronghold erected by Bernard Baliol to protect 
the lands bestowed on him by William the Red. Seen 
from the bridge, the rocky height, broken and craggy, 
and hung with wood, crowned by Baliol's Tower, is 
remarkably picturesque. The Tees sweeps round the 
base, as if impatient to hide itself once more under 
green woods, to receive once more such intermingled 
shadows of rock and leafage as fell on it through Mar- 
wood Chase, and where Balder rushes in about a league 
above. A mile of sunlight, and then the brawling 
stream will play with the big stones that crowd its bed 
all through the woods of Rokeby. 

Let us mount the hill and ascend the tower. The 
bearded hermit who inhabits therein points the way to 
the stone stair constructed within the massive wall, 
and presently we come to the top, where, although 
there is no parapet, the great thickness admits of your 
walking round in safety. The view is a feast for the 
eye — thick woods marking the course of the river, the 
trees thinning off as they meet the uplands, where 
fields and 'hedgerows diversify the landscape away to 
the hills; while in the distance the sight of dark, 
solemn moorlands serves but to heighten the nearer 
beauty. We can see lands once held by King Canute, 
now the property of the Duke of Cleveland : we passed 
his estate, the park and castle of Raby, about six miles 
distant on our way hither; and whichever way we 
look there is something for memory to linger on: 

" Staindrop, who, from her sylvan bowers, 
Salutes proud Raby's battled towers ; 
The rural brook of Egliston, 
And Balder, named from Odin's son ; 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 195 

And Greta, to whose banks ere long 
We lead the lovers of the song ; 
And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild, 
And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child, 
And last and least, hut loveliest still, 
Romantic Deepdale's slender rill." 

Barnard Castle was lost to the Baliol family by the 
defeat of John Baliol's pretensions to the crown of 
Scotland. Later it was granted, with the adjoining 
estates, to the Earls of Warwick, and on the marriage 
of Anne Neville with royal Gloucester, the Duke chose 
it as his favourite residence. You may still see his 
cognizance of the boar here and there on the walls, 
and on some of the oldest houses in the town. The 
Earl of Westmoreland had it next, but lost it by 
taking part in The Rising of the North. The 
couplet — 

" Coward, a coward, of Barney Castel, 
Dare not come out to fight a battel," 

is said to have its origin in the refusal of the knight 
who held the castle to quit the shelter of its walls, and 
try the effect of a combat with the rebels. And so the 
game went on, the Crown resuming possession at 
pleasure, until the whole property fell by purchase, in 
1629, to an ancestor of the present owner — the Duke 
of Cleveland. 

" Whoy ! 'tis but a little town to ha' such a muckle 
castle," exclaimed one of three men who had just 
arrived with a numerous party by excursion train from 
Newcastle, and ventured to the top of the tower. 
" Eh I the castle wur bigger nor the town." 

Whatever may have been, the thick- voiced Northum- 
brian was wrong in his first conclusion, for the town 
has more than four thousand inhabitants. But, looking 

02 



196 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

down, we can see that the castle with its outworks 
and inner buildings must have been a fortress of no 
ordinary dimensions. Nearly seven acres are compre- 
hended within its area, now chiefly laid out in garden s, 
where, sheltered by the old gray stones, the trees bear 
generous fruit. If you can persuade the hermit to 
ascend, he will point out Brackenbury's Tower, a 
dilapidated relic, with dungeons in its base, now used 
as stables ; and near it a cow-stall, which occupies the 
site of the chapel. Examine the place when you 
descend, and you will discover, amid much disfigure- 
ment, traces of graceful architecture. 

The hermit himself — a man of middle age — is a 
subject for curiosity. So far as I could make him out, 
he appeared to be half misanthropist, half mysoginist. 
He quarrelled with the world about eighteen years 
ago, and, without asking leave, took possession of a 
vault and a w T all-cavity at the foot of the great round 
tower, and has lived there ever since, supporting him- 
self by the donations of visitors, and the sale of rustic 
furniture which he makes with his own hands. His 
room in the wall is fitted with specimens of his skill, 
and it serves as a trap, for you have to pass through it 
to ascend the tower. He showed me his workshop, 
and pointed out a spot under the trees at the hill-foot 
where flows the clear cold spring from which he draws 
water. The Duke, he said, sometimes came to look at 
the ruin, and gave him a hint to quit ; but he did not 
mean to leave until absolutely compelled. I heard 
later in the day that he had been crossed in love ; and 
that, notwithstanding his love of solitude, he would go 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 197 

out at times and find a friend, and make a night of it. 
But this may be scandal. 

I went down and took a drink at the spring which, 
embowered by trees and bushes, sparkles forth from 
the rocky brink of the river, and rambled away to 
Eokeby. There are paths on both sides of the stream, 
along the edge of the meadows, and under the trees 
past the mill, past cottages and gardens, leading far- 
ther and farther into scenes of increasing beauty. 
Then we come to the Abbey Bridge, whence you get 
a pleasing view of a long straight reach of the river, 
terminated by a glimpse of Rokeby Hall, a charming 
avenue, so to speak, of tall woods, which, with ferns, 
shrubs, and mazy plants, crowd the rocky slopes to the 
very edge of the water. From ledge to ledge rushes 
the stream, making falls innumerable, decked with 
living fringes of foam, and as the noisy current hurries 
onward, it engirdles the boulders with foamy rings, or 
hangs upon them a long white train that flutters and 
glistens as sunbeams drop down through the wind- 
shaken leaves. Strong contrasts of colour enrich the 
effect : 

" Here Tees, full many a fathom low, 
Wears with his rage no common foe ; 
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here, 
Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,. 
Condemn'd to mine a channell'd way, 
O'er solid sheets of marble gray." 

On the Yorkshire side, a few yards above the bridge, 
the remains of Egliston or Athelstan Abbey crown a 
pleasant knoll surrounded by wood. They are of small 
extent, and, on the whole, deficient in the picturesque ; 
but, as an artist said who sketched while his wife sat 



198 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

sewing by his side, u There are a few little bits worth 
carrying away." The east window, in which the plain 
rnullions still remain, is of unusual width, the chancel 
exhibits carvings of different styles ; two or three slabs 
lying on the grass preserve the memory of an abbot, 
and of a Rokeby, who figures in the still legible in- 
scription as 23aStarfc; and the outbuildings are now 
occupied as a farm. Some years hence, when the ivy, 
which has begun to embrace the eastern window, shall 
have spread its evergreen mantle wider and higher, 
the ruins will be endowed with a charm wherein their 
present scanty nakedness may be concealed. Yet apart 
from this the place has natural attractions — a village 
green, noble trees, Thorsgill within sight; and just 
beyond the green a mill of cheerful clatter. 

The artist and his wife were enjoying a happy 
holiday. They had come down into Yorkshire with a 
fortnight's excursion ticket, and a scheme for visiting 
as many of the abbeys and as much picturesque scenery 
as possible within the allotted time. Sometimes they 
walked eight or ten miles, or travelled a stage in 
a country car, content to rough it, so that their wishes 
should be gratified. They had walked across from 
Stainmoor the day before, and told me that in passing 
through Bowes they had seen the original of Dothe- 
boys Hall, now doorless, windowless, and dilapidated. 
Nicholas Nickleby's exposure was too much for it, and 
it ceased to be a den of hopeless childhood — a place to 
which heartless fathers and mothers condemned their 
children because it was cheap. 

What a contrast ! Wackford Squeers and the Thra- 
cian cohort. Bowes, under the name of Lavatrse, was 



A MONTH m YOKKSHIRE. 199 

once a station on the great Roman road from Lincoln 
to Carlisle. Ere long it will be a station on the rail- 
way that is to connect Stockton with Liverpool. 

Now, returning to the bridge, we plunge into the 
woods, and follow the river's course by devious paths. 
Gladsome voices and merry laughter resound, for a 
numerous detachment of the excursionists from New- 
castle are on their way to view the grounds of Rokeby. 
Delightful are the snatches of river scenery that we get 
here and there, where the jutting rock affords an out- 
look, and the more so as we enjoy them under a cool 
green shade. Leaving the Northumbrians at the lodge 
to accomplish their wishes, I kept on to Greta Bridge, 
and lost myself in the romantic glen through which 
the river flows. It will surprise you by its manifold 
combinations of rock, wood, and water, fascinating the 
eye at every step amid a solitude profound. This was 
the route taken by Bertram and Wilfrid when the 
ruthless soldier went to take possession of Mortham. 
You cannot fail to recognise how truly Scott describes 
the scenery; the "beetling brow" is there, and the 
a ivied banners" still hang from the crags as when the 
minstrel saw them. We can follow the two to that 

-grassy slope which sees 



The Greta flow to meet the Tees ;' 



and farther, where 



" South of the gate, an arrow flight, 
Two mighty elms their limhs unite, 
As if a canopy to spread 
O'er the lone dwelling of the dead ; 
For their huge boughs in arches bent 
Above a massive monument, 
Carved o'er in ancient Gothic wise, 
With many a scutcheon and device. ' 



200 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE, 

You will long to lengthen your hours into days for 
wanderings in this lovely neighbourhood. You will 
be unwilling to turn from the view at Mortham Tower 
— one of the old border peels, or fortresses on a small 
scale — or that which charms you from the Dairy 
Bridge. Then if the risk of losing your way does not 
deter, you may ramble to " Brignall Banks" and Scar- 
gill, having the river for companion most part of the 
way. And should you be minded to pursue the road 
through Richmondshire to Richmond, the village and 
ruins of Ravens worth will remind you of 

" The Baron of Ravens worth prances in pride, 
And he views his domains upon Arkindale side. 
The mere for his net, and the land for his game, 
The chase for the wild, and the park for the tame ; 
Yet the fish of the lake, and the deer of the vale, 
Are less free to Lord Dacre than Allen-a-Dale !" 

Or, if inspired by a deeper sentiment, you prefer a 
pilgrimage to a spot of hallowed memory to every 
Englishman, choose the river-side path to Wycliffe, 
and see how ever new beauties enchant the way, and 
say on arrival if ever you saw a prettier village church 
or a more charming environment. Shut in by woods 
and hills here, as some writers show, is the birthplace 
of John Wycliffe, to whom freedom of conscience is 
perhaps more indebted than to Luther. One may be- 
lieve that Nature herself desires to preserve from dese- 
cration the cradle of him who opened men's hearts and 
eyes to see and understand the truth in its purity;' 
cleansed from the adulterations of priestcraft; stripped 
of all the blinding cheats of papistry; who died a 
martyr to the Truth for which he had dared to live; 
who bequeathed that Truth to us, and with God's 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 201 

blessing we will keep it alive and unblemished, using 
it manfully as a testimony against all lies and shams 
whatsoever and wheresoever they may be found. 

The church was restored, as one may judge, in a 
loving spirit in 1850. It contains a few interesting 
antiquities, and is fraught with memories of the 
WyclifFes. One of the brasses records the death of 
the last of the family. Sir Antonio a-More's portrait 
of the great Reformer still hangs in the rectory, where 
it has been treasured for many generations. 

You may return from this pilgrimage by the way 
you went, or walk on through Ovington to Winston, 
and there take the train to Barnard Castle. I pre- 
ferred the banks of Tees, for their attractions are not 
soon exhausted. One of the houses at Greta, which 
was a famous hostelry in the days of stage-coaches, is 
now a not happy-looking farm-house. It has seen sore 
changes. Once noise, and activity, and unscrupulous 
profits, when the compact vehicles with the four 
panting horses rattled up to the door at all hours of 
the day or night, conveying passengers from London 
to Edinburgh. Now, a silence seldom disturbed save 
by the river's voice, and time for reflection, and leisure 
to look across to its neighbour, wherein the wayfarer 
or angler may still find rest and entertainment. From 
Greta Bridge to Boroughbridge was considered the 
best bit of road in all the county. Now it is en- 
croached on by grass, and the inns which are not shut 
up look altogether dejected, especially that one where 
the dining-room has been converted into a stable. 

If you have read the ballad of The Felon Sow, we 
will remember it while repassing the park : 



202 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

" She was mare than other three, 
The grisliest beast that e'er might be, 

Her head was great and gray : 
She was bred in Rokeby wood, 
There were few that thither goed, 

That came on live away. 

" Her walk was endlong Greta side ; 
There was no bren that dnrst her bide, 

That was froe heaven to hell ; 
Nor ever man that had that might, 
That ever durst come in her sight, 

Her force it was so fell. 



" If ye will any more of this, 
In the Fryers of Richmond 'tis 

In parchment good and fine ; 
And how Fryar Middleton that was so kend, 
At Greta Bridge conjured a feind 

In likeness of a swine." 

I got back to Barnard Castle in time for the omni- 
bus, which starts at half-past five for Middleton-in- 
Teesdale, nine miles distant on the road to the hills. 
I was the only passenger, and taking my seat by the 
side of the driver, found him very willing to talk. 
The road ascends immediately after crossing the bridge 
to a finely-wooded district, hill and dale, rich in oak, 
ash, and beech. Deepdale beck yawns on the left, and 
every mile opens fresh enjoyment to the eye, and 
revives associations. Lartington is a pretty village, 
which hears night and morn and all day long the tre- 
mulous voice of innumerable leaves. " Them's all 
Roman Catholics there," said the driver, as we left it 
behind ; and by-and-by, when we came to Cotherstone 
— Cuthbert's Town — " Here 'tis nothin' but cheese 
and Quakers." There is, however, something else, 
for here it was 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 203 



-the Northmen came, 



Fix'd on each vale a Runic name, 
Rear'd high their altar's rugged stone, 
And gave their gods the land they won. 
Then, Balder, one bleak garth was thine, 
And one sweet brooklet's silver line, 
And Woden's Croft did title gain 
From the stern Father of the Slain ; 
But to the Monarch of the Mace, 
That held in fight the foremost place, 
To Odin's son, and Sifia's spouse, 
Near Stratforth high they paid their vows, 
Remembered Thor's victorious fame, 
And gave the dell the Thunderer's name." 



A delightful day might be spent hereabouts in ex- 
ploring the glen of the Balder, and the romantic 
scenery where it flows into Tees; the Hagg crowned 
by fragments of a stronghold of the Fitzhughs; and 
the grand rock on the river's brink known as Pen- 
dragon Castle. The whole region for miles around 
was once thickly covered by forest. 

The pace is sober, for some of the hills are steep. 
We come to Romaldkirk, and the folk, as everywhere 
else along the road, come from their houses to inquire 
for parcels or replies to messages, and the driver has a 
civil word for all, and discharges his commissions 
promptly. He is an important man in the dale, the 
roving link between the villagers and the town — 
" Barn'd Cas'l'," as they say, slurring it into two syl- 
lables. It does one good to see with how much good- 
nature the service can be performed. 

Hill after hill succeeds, the woods are left behind, 
the country opens bare and wild, rolling away to the 
dark fells that look stern in the distance. Big stones 
bestrew the slopes ; here and there a cottage seems little 



204 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 

better than a pile of such stones covered with slabs of 
slate or coarse thatch. " Poorish wheat hereabouts," 
says the driver, as he points to the pale green fields. 
The farms vary in size from seventy to one hundred 
and fifty acres; and he thinks it better to grow grass 
than grain. Then we come in sight of Middleton, 
and presently he pulls up, while a boy and girl get 
inside, and he tells me they are his children, who have 
come out half a mile to meet him. 

Middleton, with its eighteen hundred inhabitants, 
has the appearance of a little metropolis. There are 
inns and shops which betoken an active trade, main- 
tained probably by the lead mines in the neighbour- 
hood. I did not tarry, for we had spent two hours on 
the journey, and I wished to sleep at the High Force 
Inn, nearly five miles farther. We are still on the 
Durham side of the Tees; the river is now in sight, 
winding along its shallow, stony bed. The road is an 
almost continuous ascent, whereby the landscape ap- 
pears to widen, and every minute the shadows grow 
broader and darker across the vale. At last the sun 
drops behind the hill-top, and the lights playing on 
the summits of the fells deepen into purple, umber, 
and black, darkest where the slopes and ridges inter- 
sect. Cliffs topped with wood break through the 
acclivities on the left, and here and there plantations 
of spruce and larch impart a sense of shelter. Every 
step makes us feel that we are approaching a region 
where Nature partakes more of the stern than the 
gentle. 

There is room for improvement. I interrupted 
three boys in their pastime of pelting swallows to ex- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 205 

amine them in reading; but they only went u whiles" 
to " skule," and only one could read, and that very 
badly, in the " Testyment." 

I left Winch Bridge and the cascade which it be- 
strides about three miles from Middleton, unvisited, 
for I was tired with much rambling. The clean white 
front of the inn gleaming through the twilight was a 
welcome sight; and not less so the excellent tea which 
was quickly set before me. Cleanliness prevails, and 
unaffected civility; and the larder, though in a lone 
spot a thousand feet above the sea, contributes with- 
out stint to the hungry appetite. 

It happened that I was the only guest; hence no- 
thing disturbed the tranquil hour. Ere long I was 
looking from my chamber window on the dim out- 
lines of the hills, and the thick wood beloAV that inter- 
cepts the view of the valley beneath. Then I became 
aware of a solemn roar — the voice of High Force in 
its ceaseless plunge. Fitfully it came at times, now 
fuller, now weaker, as the night breeze rose and fell, 
and the tree-tops whispered in harmony therewith. 

I listened awhile, sensible of a charm in the sound 
of falling water; then, pushing the sash to its full 
height, the sound still reached me on my pillow. 
Strange fancies came with it: now the river seemed 
to utter sonorous words ; anon the hills talked dreamily 
one with another, and the distant sea sent up a reply; 
and then, all became vague — and I slept the sleep of 
the weary. 



206 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Early Mom — High Force— Rock and Water — A Talk with the Waitress 
— Hills and Cottages— Cronkley Scar— The Weel— Caldron Snout- 
Soothing Sound — Scrap from an Album — View into Birkdale — A 
Quest for Dinner — A Westmoreland Farm — Household Matters — 
High Cope Nick — Mickle Fell— The Boys' Talk— The Hill-top— 
Glorious Prospect — A Descent— Solitude and Silence— A Moss — 
Stainmoor — Brough — The Castle Ruin— Reminiscences. 

The next day dawned, and a happy awaking was 
mine, greeted by the same rushing voice, no longer 
solemn and mysterious, but chanting, as one might 
imagine, a morning-song of praise. I looked out, and 
saw with pleasurable surprise the fall full in view from 
the window, a long white sheet of foam, glistening in 
the early sunbeams. 

All the slope between the inn and the fall is covered 
by a thick plantation of firs, ash, hazel, and a teeming 
Undergrowth, and through this by paths winding 
hither and thither you have to descend. Now the 
path skirts precipitous rocks, hung with ivy, now falls 
gently among ferns to an embowered seat, until at a 
sudden turn the noise of the fall bursts full upon you. 
A little farther and the trees no longer screen it, and 
you see the deep stony chasm, and the peat-stained water 
making three perpendicular leaps down a precipice 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 207 

seventy feet in Height. It is a striking scene, what 
with the grim crags, the wild slopes, and the huge 
masses lying at the bottom and in the bed of the 
stream ; and the impressive volume of sound. 

We can scramble down to the very foot of the 
limestone bluff that projects in the middle, leaving a 
channel on each side, down one of which a mere thread 
of water trickles ; but in time of flood both are filled, 
and then the fall is seen and heard in perfection. Now 
we can examine the smooth water-worn rock, and see 
where something like crystallization has been produced 
by a highly heated intrusive rock. And here and 
there your eye will rest with pleasure on patches of 
moss and fern growing luxuriantly in dripping nooks 
and crannies. 

You see how the water, rebounding from its second 
plunge, shoots in a broken mass of foam into the 
brown pool below, and therein swirls and swashes for 
a while, and then escapes by an outlet that you might 
leap across, talking to thousands of stones as it spreads 
itself out in the shallow bed. Standing with your 
back to the fall, and looking down the stream, the 
view, shut in by the trees on one side, by a rough 
grassy acclivity on the other, is one that lures you to 
explore it, striding along the rugged margin, or from 
one lump of rock to another. 

Then returning to the diverging point in the path, 
we mount to the top of the fall. Here the scene is, if 
possible, wilder than below. The rock, as far as you 
can see, is split into a thousand crevices, and through 
these the river rushes to its leap. Such a river-bed 
you never saw before. The solid uprising portions 



208 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

are of all dimensions, and you step from one to the 
other without first feeling if they are steady. Here 
and there you climb, and coming to the top of the 
bluff you can look over and watch the water in its 
headlong leap. The brown tinge contrasts beautifully 
with the white foam ; and lying stretched on the sun- 
warmed rock, your eye becomes fascinated by the swift 
motion and the dancing spray. Then sit awhile on 
the topmost point and look up stream, and enjoy 
the sight of the rapids, and the multitudinous cascades. 
Though the rocks now lift their heads above water, 
you will notice that all are smoothly worn by the 
floods of ages. The view is bounded there by a 
mighty high-backed fell; and in the other direction 
brown moorlands meet the horizon, all looking glad 
in the glorious sunshine. 

I loitered away two hours around the fall in un- 
broken solitude, and returned to the inn to breakfast 
before all the dew was dry. The house was built 
about twenty- five years ago, said the waitress, when 
the road was made to connect the lead mines of 
Aldston Moor, in Cumberland, with the highways of 
Durham. There was not much traffic in the winter, 
for then nobody travelled but those who were com- 
pelled — farmers, cattle-dealers, and miners; but in 
summer the place was kept alive by numerous visitors 
to the fall. Most were contented with a sight of High 
Force; but others went farther, and looked at Cal- 
dron Snout and High Cope Nick. Sometimes a school 
came up for a day's holiday ; they had entertained one 
the day before — two wagon-loads of Roman Catholic 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 209 

children. True enough, our omnibus had met them 
returning. 

The house looks across the valley to Hoi wick fell, 
and were it not for the trees in front, would have but 
a bare, and, at times, desolate prospect. The whole 
premises are as clean as whitewash can make them; 
even the stone fences are whitewashed. The Duke 
of Cleveland is proprietor: he ought to be proud of 
his tenants. 

How glad the morning seemed when I stepped 
forth again into the sunshine to travel a few miles 
farther up the Tees. The road still ascends and 
curves into the bleak and lonely fells, which stretch 
across the west of Durham and into Cumberland. In 
winter they are howling wastes, and in snow-storms 
appalling, as I remember from painful experience. 
But in summer there is a monotonous grandeur about 
them comparable only with that of the ocean. 

Just beyond the sixteenth milestone from Aldstone 
I got over the fence, and followed a path edging 
away on the left towards the river. It crosses 
pastures, little meadows, coarse swampy patches 
sprinkled with flowers; disappears in places ; but while 
you can see the river or a cottage you need not go 
astray. There is something about the cottages pecu- 
liar to a hill-country : the ground-floor is used for a 
stable and barn, and the dwelling-rooms are above, 
approached by a stone stair on the outside. With 
their walls freshly whitewashed, they appear as bright 
specks widely scattered in the wilderness ; and though 
no tree adorns or shelters them, they betoken the 

P 



210 A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 

presence of humanity, and there is comfort in that. 
And withal they enjoy the purest breezes, the most 
sparkling water, flowery meadows, and hills purple 
with heather when summer is over. If you go to 
the door the inmates will invite you to sit, and listen 
eagerly to the news you bring. Meanwhile you may 
note the evidences of homely comfort and apparent 
contentment. A girl who was pulling dock-leaves — 
" dockans," as she called them — told me they were to 
be boiled for the pig. 

Ere longCronkley Scar comes insight — a tremendous 
sombre precipice of the rock known to geologists as 
greenstone, in which, if learned in such matters, you 
may peruse many examples of metamorphic phenomena. 
And hereabouts, as botanists tell us, there are rare and 
interesting plants to be discovered. The Scar is on 
the Yorkshire side ; but the stream is here so shallow 
and full of stones, that to wade across would only be 
an agreeable footbath. 

Now the stream makes a bend between two hills, 
and looking up the vale we see the lower slopes of 
Mickle Fell — the highest mountain in Yorkshire. 
We shall perhaps climb to its summit ere the day be 
many hours older. 

From the last dwelling — a farm-house — I mounted 
the hill, and followed a course by compass to hit the 
river above the bend. Soon all signs of habitation 
were left behind, and the trackless moorland lay before 
me overspread with a dense growth of ling, wearisome 
to walk through. And how silent ! A faint sound 
of rushing water comes borne on the breeze, and that 
is all. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 2 1 1 

Then we come to the declivity, and the view opens 
to the north-west, swell beyond swell, each wilder in 
aspect, as it seems, than the other. And there be- 
neath us glisten the shining curves of the Tees. The 
compass has not misled us, and we descend to the 
Weel, as this part of the river is called, where for 
about a mile its channel deepens, and the current is so 
tranquil that you might fancy it a lengthened pool. 
We go no higher, but after gazing towards the fells in 
which the river draws its source, we turn and follow 
the Weel to a rift in the hill-side. The current 
quickens, the faint sound grows louder, and presently 
coming to the brink of a rocky chasm we behold the 
cataract of Caldron Snout. The Tees here makes a 
plunge of two hundred feet, dashing from rock to 
rock, twisting, whirling, eddying, and roaring in its 
dark and tortuous channel. The foam appears the 
whiter and the grasses all the greener by contrast with 
the blackness of the riven crags, and although no 
single plunge equals that at High Force, you will 
perhaps be more impressed here. You are here shut 
out from the world amid scenes of savage beauty, and 
the sense of isolation begets a profounder admiration 
of the natural scene, and enjoyment of the manifold 
watery leaps, as you pause at each while scrambling 
down the hill-side. 

About half way down the fall is crossed by a bridge 
— a rough beam only with a rude hand-rail — from 
which you can see the fall in either direction and note 
the stony bends of the river below till they disappear 
behind the hill. From near its source to Caldron the 

p2 



212 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Tees divides Durham from Westmoreland, and in all 
its further downward course from Yorkshire. 

Let me sit for an hour by the side of a fall, and 
watch the swift play of the water, and hear its cease- 
less splash and roar, and whatever cobwebs may have 
gathered in my mind, from whatever cause, are all 
swept clean away. Serenity comes into my heart, 
and the calm sunshine pervades my existence for 
months — nay, years afterwards. And what a joy it is 
to recall — especially in a London November — or rather 
to renew, the happy mood inspired by the waterfall 
among the mountains. 

I have at times fancied that the effect of the noise 
is somewhat similar to that described of narcotics 
by those who indulge therein. The mind forgets the 
body, and thinks whatsoever it listeth. Whether or 
not, my most various and vivid day-dreams have been 
dreamt by the side of a waterfall. 

It seems, moreover, at such times, as if memo^ 
liked to ransack her old stores. And now I suddenly 
recollected Hawkeye's description of the tumbling 
water at Glenn's Falls, as narrated in The Last of the 
Mohicans^ which I had read when a boy. Turn to 
the page, reader, and you will admire its faithfulness. 
Anon came a rhyme which a traveller who went to 
see the falls of the Clyde sixty years ago, tells us he 
copied from the album at Lanark: 



What fools are mankind, 
and how strangely inclin'd, 
to come from all places 
with horses and chaises, 
by day and by dark, 
to the Falls of Lanark. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 213 

" For good people after all, 
what is a waterfall ? 
It comes roaring and grumbling, 
and leaping, and tumbling, 
and hopping and skipping, 
and foaming and dripping, 
and struggling and toiling, 
and bubbling and boiling, 
and beating and jumping, 
and bellowing and thumping — 
I have much more to say upon 
both Linn and Bonniton ; 
but the trunks are tied on, 
and I must be gone." 

Southey, who read everything, perhaps saw this 
before he wrote his Falls of Lodore. 

And we, too, must be gone; and now that we have 
seen 

" Where Tees in tumult leaves his source 
Thund'ring o'er Caldron and High Force," 

we will gather ourselves up and travel on. 

But whither? I desired a public-house; but no 
house of any sort was to be seen — nothing but the 
scrubby hill-side, and mossy-headed rocks peeping out 
with a frown at the mortal who had intruded into 
their dominion. The end of a meadow, however, 
comes over the slope on the other side of the bridge; 
perhaps from the top of the slope something may be 
discerned. Yes, there was a cottage. I hastened 
thither, but it proved to be an old tenement now used 
as a byre. I looked farther: the view had opened 
into Birkdale, and there, about a mile distant, saw two 
farm-houses. And there, on the left, rose the huge, 
long-backed form of Mickle Fell, whose topmost 
height was my next aim, and I could test the hospi- 
tality of the houses on the way thither. 



214 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

We are now in a corner of Westmoreland which, 
traversed by Birkdale, presents diversified alpine fea- 
tures. The valley is green ; the meadows are flowery 
and dotted with cattle; the hills, stern and high, 
are browsed by sheep; and Maize Beck, a talkative 
mountain stream, flows with many a stony bend along 
the bottom — the dividing line between Westmoreland 
and Yorkshire. There are no trees; and for miles 
wide the only building is here and there a solitary 
byre. 

My inquiry for dinner at the first of the two houses 
was answered by an invitation to sit down, and ready 
service of bread, butter, milk, and cheese. I made a 
capital repast, and drank as much genuine milk at one 
sitting as would charge a Londoner's supply for two 
months. The father was out sheep-shearing, leaving 
the mother with a baby and four big children at home. 
But only the eldest boy looked healthy; the others 
had the sodden, unwashed appearance supposed to be 
peculiar to dwellers in the alleys of large towns. No 
wonder, I thought, for the kitchen, the one living 
room, was as hot and stifling as a Bohemian cottage. 
The atmosphere was close and disagreeably odorous; a 
great turf fire burned in the grate, and yet the outer 
door was kept as carefully shut as if July breezes were 
hurtful. I tried to make the good woman aware of 
the ill consequences of bad air; but old habits are not 
to be changed in an hour. She didn't think that 
overmuch wind could do anybody good, and it was 
best for babies to keep them warm. They managed 
to do without the doctor: only fetched him when 
they must. There was none nearer than Middleton. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 215 

Six weeks previously, when baby was born, they bad 
to send for him in a hurry ; but Tees was in flood, and 
Caldron Snout so full that the water ran over the 
bridge ; her boy, however, got across, and rode away 
the nine miles at full speed on his urgent errand. 

What with chairs and tables, racks and shelves, the 
dresser, the clock, the settee under the window, three 
dogs, a cat, and a pigeon — to say nothing of the 
family — the room was almost as crowded as the steer- 
age of a ship. The pigeon — the only one in the dale 
—•had come from parts unknown a few weeks before 
of its own accord, and was now a household pet, 
cooing about the floor, and on civil terms with the cat. 
But the children feared it would die in winter, as they 
had no peas in those parts, nothing but grass. Sixty 
acres of " mowing-grass " and a run for sheep comprise 
the farm. 

While the Ordnance Survey was in Westmoreland, 
two sappers lodged in the house for months ; and the 
eldest son, an intelligent lad, had much to tell con- 
cerning their operations. What pains they took; how 
many times they toiled to the top of Mickle Fell only 
to find that up there it was too windy for their obser- 
vations, and so forth. Sometimes a stranger came and 
wanted a guide to High Cope Nick, and then he went 
with his father. Two photographers had come the 
preceding autumn, and took views of the Nick on 
pieces of paper with a box that had a round glass in 
it ; but the views wasn't very good ones. 

High Cope Nick, as its name indicates, is a deep 
notch or chasm in the hills overlooking the low coun- 
try of Westmoreland about four miles from this Birk- 



216 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

dale farm. " It's nigh hand as brant * as a wall," said 
the boy ; " you can hardly stand on't." It is one of 
the scenes which I reserve for a future holiday. 

The woman could not hear of taking more than six- 
pence for my dinner, and thought herself overpaid 
with that. The two boys were going up the fell to 
look after sheep, so w r e started together, crossed the 
beck on stepping-stones, followed by two dogs, and 
soon began the long ascent. There is no path : you 
stride through the heather, through the tough bent, 
across miry patches, and stony slopes, past swallow- 
holes wherein streams of water disappear in heavy 
rains ; and find at times by the side of the beck a few 
yards of smooth sweet turf. The beck is noisy in its 
freakish channel, yet pauses here and there and fills a 
sober pool, wherein you may see fish, and perchance a 
drowned sheep. I saw four on the way upwards, and 
the sight of the swollen carcases made me defer drink- 
ing till nearer the source. I could hardly believe the 
lads' words that fifteen hundred sheep were feeding on 
the hill, so few did they appear scattered over the vast 
surface. 

" How many sheep do you consider fair stock to 
the acre?" asked Sir John Sinclair during one of his 
visits to the hills. 

" Eh ! mun, ye begin at wrang end," was the answer. 
" Ye should ax how many acres till a sheep." 

Besides the sheep, added the youth, " there's thirty 
breeding galloways on the hill. There's nothing 
pays better than breeding galloways. You can sell the 
young ones a year or year and a half old for eight 
pounds apiece, and there's no much fash wi' 'em." 
* Steep. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 217 

When the time came to part, I sat down and tried 
to give the boys a peep at their home through my 
telescope. But in vain ; they could distinguish nothing, 
see nothing but a haze of green or brown. On the 
other hand, they could discern a sheep or some moving 
object at a great distance which I could not discover 
at all with the glass. They turned aside to their flock, 
and I onwards up the hill. The beck had diminished 
to a rill, and presently I came to its source — a delicious 
spring bubbling from a rock, and took a quickening 
draught. 

At length the acclivity becomes gentle, the horizon 
spreads wider and wider, and we reach the cairn 
erected by the sappers on the summit of Mickle Fell, 
2580 feet above the sea — the highest, as before re- 
marked, of the Yorkshire mountains. Glorious is the 
prospect ! Hill and dale in seemingly endless succes- 
sion — there rolling away to the blue horizon, here 
bounded by a height that hides all beyond. In the 
west appears the great gathering of mountains which 
keep watch over the Lake country, there Skiddaw, 
there Helvellyn, yonder Langdale Pikes, and the Old 
Man of Coniston; summit after summit, their outlines 
crossing and recrossing in picturesque confusion. Con- 
spicuous in the north Cross Fell — in which spring the 
head- waters of Tees — heaves his brown back in majestic 
sullenness some three hundred feet higher than the 
shaggy brow we stand on. Hence you can trace the 
vale of Tees for miles. Then gazing easterly, we catch 
far, far away the Cleveland hills, and, following round 
the circle, the blue range of the Hambletons, then 
Penyghent, Whernside, and Ingleborough, with many 
others, bring us round once more to the west. Again 



218 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

and again will your eye travel round the glorious 
panorama. 

Mickle Fell is one of the great summits in the range 
described by geologists as the Pennine chain — the 
backbone of England. Its outline is characteristic of 
that of the county; bold and abrupt to the west; 
sloping gradually down to the east. Hence the walk 
up from High Force or Birkdale calls for no arduous 
climbing, it is only tedious. From the western ex- 
tremity you look down into the vale of the Eden, 
where the green meadows, the broad fields of grain, 
dotted with trees and bordered by hedgerows, appear 
the more beautiful from contrast with the brown tints 
of the surrounding hills. 

Now for the descent. I scanned the great slope on 
the south for a practicable route, and fixed beforehand 
on the objects by which to direct my steps when down 
in the hollows — where scant outlook is to be had. 
Lowest of all lies what appears to be a light green 
meadow, beyond it rises a Mickle Fell on a small scale : 
I will make my way to the top of that, and there 
take a new departure. All between is a wild expanse 
of rock and heather. A sober run soon brought me 
to the edge of a beck, and keeping along its margin, 
now on one side, now on the other, choosing the firmest 
ground, I made good progress; and with better speed, 
notwithstanding the windings, than through the tough 
close heather. Every furlong the beck grows wider 
and fuller, and here and there the banks curve to the 
form of an oval basin smooth with short grass, favourite 
haunts for the sheep. The silly creatures take to flight 
nimbly as goats at the appearance of an intruder, and 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 219 

I lie down to enjoy the solitude. The silence is op- 
pressive — almost awful. Shut in already by the huge 
hill-sides, I am still more hidden in this hollow. The 
beck babbles ; the fugitive sheep all unseen bleat 
timidly ; a curlew comes with its melancholy cry wheel- 
ing round and round above my head; but the over- 
whelming silence loses nothing of its force. At times 
a faint hollow roar, as if an echo from the distant 
ocean, seems to fill all the air for an instant, and die 
mysteriously away. It is a time to commune with 
one's own heart and be still : to feel how poor are arti- 
ficial pleasures compared to those which are common 
to all — the simplest, which can be had for nothing — 
namely, sunshine, air, and running water, and the fair 
broad earth to walk upon. 

Onwards. The beck widens, and rushes into a broad 
stony belt to join a stream hurrying down the vale from 
the west. I crossed, and came presently to the sup- 
posed bright green meadow. It was. a swamp — a great 
sponge. To go round it would be tedious: I kept 
straight on, and by striding from one rushy hummock 
to another, though not without difficulty in the middle, 
where the sponge was all but liquid, and the rushes 
wide apart, I got across. Then the smaller hill began: 
it was steep, and without a break in the heather, com- 
pelling a toilsome climb. However, it induces whole- 
some exercise. From the top I saw Stainmoor, and 
as I had anticipated, the road which runs across it from 
Barnard Castle into Westmoreland. I came down 
upon it about four miles from Brough. 

It is a wild region. A line of tall posts is set up 
along the way, as in an alpine pass, suggestive of 



220 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

winter snows deep and dangerous. By-and-by we 
come to a declivity, and there far below we see the 
vale of Eden, and descend towards it, the views con- 
tinually changing with the windings of the road. 
Then a hamlet, with children playing on the green, 
and geese grazing among the clumps of gorse, and 
trees, and cultivation ; and all the while the hills 
appear to grow more and more mountainous as we 
descend. Then Brough comes in sight — the little hard- 
featured Westmoreland town — whitewashed walls, blue 
slate roofs, the church a good way off on an eminence, 
and beyond that, on a grassy bluff, the ruins of a castle 
partly screened by trees. 

I wanted rest and refreshment, and found both at 
the Castle Inn. An hour later I strolled out to the 
ruin. The mount on which it stands rises steeply 
from the Helbeck, a small tributary of the Eden, and 
terminates precipitously towards the west. The keep 
still rears itself proudly aloft, commanding the shat- 
tered towers, the ancient gateway, the dismantled walls 
and broken stair, and the country for miles around. 
Fallen masses lie partly buried in the earth, and here 
and there above the rough stonework overhangs as if 
ready to follow. While sauntering now within, now 
without, you can look across the cultivated landscape, 
or to the town, and the great slope of Helbeck fell 
behind it; and you will perhaps deem it a favourable 
spot to muse away the hour of sunset, when the old 
pile is touched with golden light. Thick as the walls 
are, Time and dilapidations have made them look pic- 
turesque. One of the spoilers was William the Lion 
of Scotland, who finding here a Norman fortress in 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 221 

1174, took it, along with other Westmoreland strong- 
holds; and was taken himself in the course of the 
same year at Alnwick. The Rey Cross on Stainmoor 
— still a monumental site — marked the southern limit 
of the Scottish principality of Cumberland ; hence, the 
hungry reivers north of Tweed had always an excuse 
for crossing over to beat the bounds after their manner. 
Twice afterwards was Brough Castle repaired, and burnt 
out to a shell. The second restoration was carried out 
in 1659 by the Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager 
of Pembroke, who recorded the fact on a stone over 
the entrance, enumerating all her titles, among which 
were " High Sheriffess by inheritance of the county of 
"Westmoreland, and Lady of the Honour of Skipton," 
and ending with a text of Scripture — Isaiah lviii. 12. 
After the last fire, whosoever would pillaged the 
castle; the stone bearing the Countess's inscription was 
taken down, and used in the repair of Brough mill, 
and the ruins became a quarry out of which were built 
sheds and cottages. The large masses of masonry, which 
now lie embedded in the earth, fell in 1792. 

According to antiquaries the castle occupies the 
centre of what had been a Roman station ; for Brough 
was the ancient Verterag, where coins of the emperors 
have been dug up, and the highway along which the 
legions marched to and from Carlisle, or the Pict's 
Wall, is still traceable, known in the neighbourhood as 
the Maiden Way. 

It was a lovely evening. The sun went down in 
splendour behind the Cumbrian hills, and when the 
radiance faded from the topmost summits, and gave 
place to dusky twilight, I went back to mine inn. 



222 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Return into Yorkshire— The Old Pedlar— Oh ! for the olden Time— 
"The Bible, indeed!"— An Emissary— Wild Boar Fell— Shunnor 
Fell— Mallerstang— The Eden— A Mountain Walk — Tan Hill- 
Brown Landscape— A 'School wanted— Swaledale — From Ling to 
Grass — A Talk with Lead Miners — Stonesdale — Work for a Mis- 
sionary — Thwaite— A Jolly Landlord — A Ruined Town. — The School 
at Muker — A Nickname — Buttertubs Pass — View into Wensleydale 
— Lord Wharncliffe's Lodge — Simonstone — Hardraw Scar — Geolo- 
logical Phenomenon — A Frozen Cone — Hawes. 

My next morning's route took me back into York- 
shire by a way which, leaving the road to Kirkby 
Stephen on the right, approaches Nine Standards, 
High Seat, and the other great summits which guard 
the head of Swaledale. The sisrht of these hills, and 
the gradual succession of cultivation and woods by 
untilled slopes patched with gorse and bracken, impart 
an interest to the walk. A modern battlemented 
edifice — Hougill Castle — appears on the left, the resi- 
dence of a retired physician, and beyond it the wild 
region of Stainmoor Forest; and here upon its out- 
skirts we can see how appropriate is the name Stony- 
moor. 

When near the hills I overtook an old pedlar, and 
slackened my pace to have a talk with him. At times 
I had fancied my knapsack, of less than ten pounds' 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 223 

weight, a little too heavy; but. he, though aged sixty, 
carried a pack of forty pounds,, and when in his prime 
could have borne twice as much. He took matters 
easily now; walked slowly, and rested often. From 
talking about schools, he began to contrast the present 
time with the past. Things were not half so good now 
as in the olden time, when monasteries all over the 
land took proper care alike of religion and the poor. 
Where was there anything like religion now-a-days, 
except among the Roman Catholics ? Without them 
England would be in a miserable plight; but he 
took comfort, believing from certain signs that the 
old days would return — that England would once more 
acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. 

" Never," I replied ; u that's not possible in a coun- 
try where the Bible circulates freely; and where all 
who will may read it." 

" The Bible !" he answered sneeringly — " the Bible ! 
What's the Bible? It's a very dangerous and im- 
proper book for the people to read. What should 
they know about it? The Church is the best judge. 
The Bible, indeed!" 

Such talk surprised me. I had heard that the 
Papists employ emissaries of all degrees in the endea- 
vour to propagate their doctrines ; but never met with 
one before who spoke out his notions so unreservedly; 
and I could have imagined myself thrown back some 
five hundred years, and the old fellow to be the 
spokesman in the Somersetshire ballad : 

" Chill tell thee what good vellbwe, 
Before the vriers went hence,. 
A bushell of the best wheate 
Was zold for vourteen pence, 



224 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

And vorty egges a penny, 
That were both good and newe ; 
And this che zay my zelf have zeene, 
And yet ich am no Jewe. 

* * * 

" Ich care not for the bible booke, 
'Tis too big to be true. 
Our blessed Ladyes psalter 
Zhall for my money goe ; 
Zuch pretty prayers, as therein bee, 
i The bible cannot zhowe." 

I began to defend the rights of conscience, when, 
as we came to the foot of the first great hill, the old 
packman advised me to reconsider my errors, bade me 
good day, and turned into a cottage; perhaps to sell 
calico ; perhaps to sow tares for the keeper of the keys 
at Rome. 

I made a cut- off, and came upon the road half way 
up the hill, leaving sultriness for a breezy elevation. 
Soon wide prospects opened all around me : vast green 
undulations, dotted with sheep and geese, swelling up 
into the distant hills and moorlands. That great 
group of heights on the right — Wild Boar Fell and 
Shunnor Fell — wherein Nature displays but few of her 
smiles, is the parent of not a few of Yorkshire's dales, 
becks, and waterfalls. In those untrodden solitudes 
rise Swale and Ure; there lurks the spring from which 
Eden bursts to flow through gloomy Mallerstang, and 
transfer its allegiance, as we have seen, to other counties, 
and the fairest of Cumbrian vales. Our topographical 
bard makes the forest of the darksome glen thus ad- 
dress the infant stream : 

" 0, my bright lovely brook whose name doth bear the sound 
Of God's first garden-plot, th' imparadised ground, 
Wherein he placed man, from whence by sin he fell : 
0, little blessed brook, how doth my bosom swell 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 225 

With love I bear to thee, the day cannot suffice 
For Mallerstang to gaze upon thy beauteous eyes." 

Talk of royal tapestries, what carpet can compare 
with the springy turf that borders the road whereon 
you walk with lightsome step, happier than a king, and 
having countless jewels to admire in the golden buds 
of the gorse? It is a delightful mountain walk, now 
rising, now falling, but always increasing the eleva- 
tion ; so cool and breezy in comparison with the sultry 
temperature of the road we left below. And the 
grouping of the summits around the broad expanse 
changes slowly as you advance, and between the shades 
of yellow and green, brown and purple, the darker 
shadows denote the courses of the dales. Wayfarers 
are few ; perhaps a boy trudges past pulling a donkey, 
which drags a sledge laden with turf or hay; or a 
pedlar with crockery ; but for miles your only living 
companions are sheep and geese. 

With increasing height we have less of grass and 
more of ling, and at ten miles from Brough we come 
to the public-house on Tan Hill, situate in the midst 
of a desolate brown upland, in which appear the up- 
reared timbers of coalpits, some abandoned, others in 
work. The house shows signs of isolation in a want 
of cleanliness and order; but you can get oaten bread, 
cheese, and passable beer, and have a talk with the 
pitmen, and the rustics who come in for a drink ere 
starting homewards with cartloads of coal. Seeing 
the numerous family round the hostess, I inquired: 
about their school ; on which one of the black fellows 
— a rough diamond — took up the question. There- 
had been a dame school in one of the adjacent cot- 

Q 



226 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

tages, but the old 'onian gave it up, and now the 

bairns was runnin' wild. 'Twasn't right of Mr. , 

the proprietor of the mines, to take away 5000/. a year, 
and not give back some on't for a school. It made a 
man's heart sore to see bairns wantin' schoolin' and no 
yabble to get it. 'Twasn't right, that 't wasn't. 

Apparently an honest miner lived beneath that 
coaly incrustation, possessed of good sense and sensi- 
bility. T quite agreed with him, and recommended 
him to talk about a school whenever he could get a 
listener. 

About a mile from the public-house the road leaves 
the brown region, and descends rapidly to the Swale, 
crossing where the stream swells in rainy weather to a 
noisy cataract, and Swaledale stretches away before us, 
a grand mountain valley, yet somewhat severe in aspect. 
Gentle, as its name imports, appears misapplied to a 
rushing stream; but a long course lies before it: past 
Grinton, past picturesque Richmond, ancient ruins, 
towers of barons, and cloisters of monks, and to the 
broad Vale of York, where, calmed by old experience, 
it flows at Myton gently into the Ure. And not only 
gentle but sacred, for Swale has been called the Jordan 
of Yorkshire, because of the multitudinous baptism of 
the earliest converts therein by Paulinus ; " above ten 
thousand men, besides women and children, in one 
day," according to the chronicler, who, perhaps to 
disarm incredulity, explains that the apostle having 
baptized ten, sent them into the stream to baptize a 
hundred, and so multiplied his assistants as the rite 
proceeded, while he prayed on the shore. 

By-and-by we meet signs of inhabitants— a house or 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 227 

two ; a few fields of mowing grass ; the heaps of refuse 
at lead mines, and. our walk derives a pleasurable in- 
terest from the hourly change — the bleak, barren, and. 
lonely, for the sheltered, the cultivated, and inhabited. 
More and. more are the hill-sides wavy with grass as 
we descend^ field after field shut in by stone fences, 
and the dalesmen are beginning to mow. The time 
of the hay harvest has come for the mountains: a 
month later than in the south. How beautifully the 
bright green contrasts with the dark purple distances, 
and softens the features of the dale ! And as I looked 
from side to side, or around to the rear, as the falling 
road made the hills seem higher, and saw how much 
Swaledale has in common with a valley of the Alps, I 
felt that here the desire for mountain scenery might 
be satisfied ; and I found myself watching for the first 
field of grain with as much interest as I had watched 
for vines in the Val Mont Joie. 

I overtook a party of lead miners, boys and men, 
going home from work. The boys could read; but 
there was only one of them who really liked reading. 
"He's a good quiet boy," said the father; "likes to 
set down wi' his book o' evenin's; t'other's says they 
is tired. He can draw a bit, too; and I'd like well to 
send 'n to a good skule ; but I only gets two pounds a 
month, and that's poor addlings." And one of the 
young men wished that digging for lead didn't make 
him so tired, for readin' made him fall asleep, and 
yet he wanted to get on with his books. " It don't 
seem right," he added, " that a lad should want a bit 
o' larnin' and not get it." I said a few words about 
the value of Jiabit, the steady growth of knowledge 
Q2 * 



228 A MONTH TN YORKSHIRE. 

from only half an hour's application continued day 
after day at the same hour, and the many ways of learn- 
ing offered to us apart from books. The whole party 
listened with interest, and expressed their thanks when 
we parted at the hamlet of Stonesdale. The lad 
thought he'd try. He'd emigrate, only his wage was 
too low for saving. 

If I had the missionary spirit, I would not go to 
Patagonia or Feejee; but to the out-of-the-way places 
in my own country, and labour trustfully there to 
remove some of the evils of ignorance. Any man 
who should set himself to such a work, thinking 
not more highly of himself than he ought to think, 
would be welcomed in every cottage, and become 
assured after a while, that many an eye would watch 
gladly for his coming. One of my first tasks should 
be to go about and pull up that old pedlar's mis- 
chievous tares, and plant instead thereof a practical 
knowledge of common things. 

With unlimited supplies of stone to draw on, the 
houses of Stonesdale are as rough and solid as if built 
by Druids. Every door has a porch for protection 
against storms, and round each window a stripe of 
whitewash betrays the rudimentary ornamental art of 
the inmates. A little farther, and coming to the 
village of Thwaite, I called at the Joiners^ Arms for a 
glass of ale. The landlord, mistaking my voice for 
that of one of his friends, came hastily into the kitchen 
with a jovial greeting, and apparently my being a 
stranger made no difference, for he sat down and 
began a hearty talk about business, about his boy- 
hood, when he used to run after the hounds, about 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 229 

his children, and the school down at Muker. I 
laughed when he mentioned running after the hounds, 
for, as I saw him, he was, as Southey has it, " broad 
in the rear and abdominous in the van." His agility 
had been a fact, nevertheless. I praised the beer. 
That did not surprise him; he brewed it himself, out 
of malt and hops, too ; not out of doctor's stuff. I 
asked a question about Hawes, to which I was going 
over the Pass. u Oh ! " said he, " it's terribly fallen 
off for drink. I used to keep the inn there. A man 
could get a living in that day by selling drink; but 
now the Methodists and teetotallers have got in among 
'em, and the place is quite ruined." Manifestly my 
heavy friend looked at the question from the licensed 
victualler's point of view. Concerning the school down 
at Muker, however, he was not uncharitable. 'Twas a 
good school — a church school. There was a chapel of 
ease there to Grinton. Mr. Lowther did the preach- 
ing and looked after the school, and the people 
liked his teaching and liked his preaching. He 
brought the children on well, gals as well as boys; that 
he did. 

If, reader, you should go to Thwaite, and wish 
to have a chat with a jolly landlord, inquire for Matty 
John Ned, the name by which he is known in all the 
country round ; remembering what happened in my 
experience. For when, late in the evening, I inti- 
mated to mine host of the White Hart at Hawes 
that Mr. Edward Alderson had recommended me to 
his house, he replied, doubtfully, " Alderson— Aider- 
son at Thwaite, do you say?" 

" Yes, Alderson at Thwaite : a big man." 



230 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

" O-oo-o-li ! you mean Matty John Ned." 
Below Thwaite the dale expands; trees appear; 
you see Muker about three miles distant, the chief 
village of Upper Swaledale. Still nothing but grass 
in the fields; and the same all the way to Reeth, ten 
miles from Muker. There you would begin to see 
grain. Not far from Thwaite I turned up a very 
steep, stony road on the right, which leads over the 
Buttertubs Pass into Wensleydale, and soon could 
look down on the village, and miles of Swaledale, 
and the hills beyond. Among those hills are glens and 
ravines, and many a spot that it would be a pleasure to 
explore, to say nothing of the lead mines, and the 
"glifTs" of primitive manners; and any one who could 
be content with homely head-quarters at Muker or 
Thwaite might enjoy a roaming holiday for a week or 
two. And for lovers of the angle there are trout in 
the brooks. 

The ascent is long as well as steep, and rough 
withal ; but the views repay you every time you pause 
with more and more of the features of a mountain 
pass. There are about it touches of savage gran- 
deur, and the effect of these was heightened at the 
time I crossed by a deep dark cloud-shadow which 
overspread a league of the hills, and left the lower 
range of the dale in full sunshine. For a while the 
road skirts the edge of a deep glen on the left; it 
becomes deeper and deeper; there are little fields, and 
haymakers at work at the bottom; then the slopes 
change ; the heather creeps down ; the beck frets and 
foams, sending its noise upward to your ear; screes 
and scars intermingle their rugged forms and varia- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 231 

tions of colour; a waterfall rushes down the crags; 
and when these have passed before your eyes you find 
yourself on the desolate summit. 

More desolate than any of the heights I had yet 
passed over. A broad table-land of turf bogs, cof- 
fee-coloured pools, stacks of turf, patches of rushes, 
and great boulders peeping everywhere out from 
among the hardy heather. The dark cloud still 
hung aloft, and the wind blew chill, making me 
quicken my pace, and feel the more pleasure when, 
after about half an hour, the view opened into Wens- 
leydale. A valley appears on the right, with colts 
and cattle grazing on the bright green slopes ; the road 
descends; stone abounds; fences, large gate-posts, all 
are made of stone ; the road gets rougher ; and by-and- 
by we come to Shaw, a little village under Stag fell, 
by the side of a wooded glen, from which there rises 
the music of a mountain brook. On the left you see 
Lord Wharncliffe's lodge, to which he resorts with his 
friends on the 12 th of August, for the hills around are 
inhabited by grouse. Yonder the walls and windows 
of Hawes reflect the setting sun, and we see more of _ 
Wensleydale, where trees are numerous in the land- 
scape. 

Then another little village, Simons tone, where, 
passing through the public-house by the bridge, we 
find a path that leads us into a rocky chasm, about 
ninety feet deep and twice as much in width, the 
limestone cliffs hung with trees and bushes, here and 
there a bare crag jutting out, or lying shattered be- 
neath; while, cutting the grassy floor in two, a lively 
beck ripples its way along. A bend conceals its 



232 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

source ; but we saunter on, and there at the end of the 
ravine, where the cliffs advance and meet, we see the 
beck making one leap from top to bottom — and that is 
Hardraw Scar. The rock overhangs above, hence 
the water shoots clear of the cliff, and preserves an 
irregular columnar form, widening at the base with 
bubbles and spray. You can go behind it, and look 
through the falling current against the light, and note 
how it becomes fuller and fuller of lines of beads as it 
descends, until they all commingle in the flurry below. 
Dr. Tyndall might make an observatory of this cool 
nook, the next time he investigates the cause of the 
noise in falling water, with the advantage of looking 
forth on the romantic and pleasing scene beyond. The 
geologist finds in the ravine a suggestive illustration 
on a small scale of what Niagara with thunderous 
plunge has been accomplishing through countless 
ages — namely, wearing away the solid rock, inch by 
inch, foot by foot, until in the one instance a river 
chasm is formed miles in length, and here, in the 
other, a pretty glen a little more than a furlong- 
deep. 

At the time I saw it, the quantity of water was pro- 
bably not more than would fill a twelve-inch tube; 
but after heavy rains the upper stream forms a broad 
horseshoe fall as it rushes over the curving cliff. In 
the severe frost of 1740, when the Londoners were 
holding a fair on the Thames, Hardraw Scar was 
frozen, and, fed continually from the source above, it 
became at last a cone of ice, ninety feet in height, and 
as much in circumference at the base : a phenomenon 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 233 

that was long remembered by the gossips of the neigh- 
bourhood. 

Hawes cheats the eye, and seems near, when by the 
road it is far off. On the way thither from Simon- 
stone we cross the Ure, the river of Wensleydale, a 
broad and shallow yet lively stream, infusing a charm 
into the landscape, which I saw at the right moment, 
when the evening shadows were creeping from the 
meadows up the hill-sides, and the water flashed with 
gold and crimson ripples. I lingered on the bridge 
till the last gleam vanished. 

So grim and savage are the fells at the head of 
Wensleydale, that the country folk in times past 
regarded them with superstitious dread, and called the 
little brooks which there foster the infancy of Ure, 
" hell-becks" — a name of dread. But both river and 
dale change their character as they descend, the one 
flowing through scenes of exquisite beauty ere, united 
with the Swale, it forms the Ouse; and the dale 
broadens into the richest and most beautiful of all the 
North Riding. 



234 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Bainbridge — " If you had wanted a Wife" — A Ramble — Millgill Force 
— Whitfell Force— A lovely Dell— The Roman Camp— The Forest 
Horn, and the old Hornblower — Haymaking — A Cockney Raker — 
Wensleydale Scythemen — A Friend indeed — Addleborough — Cur- 
lews and Grouse— The First Teapot — Nasty Greens — The Prospect — 
Askrigg — Bolton Castle — Penhill — Middleham — Miles Coverdale's 
Birthplace — Jervaux Abbey — Moses's Principia — Nappa Hall — The 
Metcalfes — The Knight and the King — The Springs — Spoliation of 
the Druids — The great Cromlech — Legend — An ancient Village — 
Simmer Water— An advice for Anglers — More Legends — Counter- 
side — Money-grubbers — Widdale — Newby Head. 

Four miles from Hawes down the dale is the 
pleasant village of Bainbridge, where the rustic houses, 
with flower-plots in front and roses climbing on the 
walls, and yellow stonecrop patching the roofs and 
fences, look out upon a few noble sycamores, and a 
green — a real village green The hills on each side 
are lofty and picturesque ; at one end, on a flat emi- 
nence, remains the site of a Roman camp ; the Bain, a 
small stream coming from a lake some three miles dis- 
tant, runs through the place in a bed of solid stone, to 
enter Ure a little below, and all around encroaching 
here and there up the hill-sides spread meadows of 
luxuriant grass. The simple rural beauty will gladden 
your eye, and — as with every stranger who comes to 
Bainbridge — win your admiration. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 235 

Wensleydale enjoys a reputation for cheese and fat 
pastures and wealth above the neighbouring dales, 
and appears to be fully aware of its superiority. The 
folk, moreover, consider themselves refined, advanced 
in civilization in comparison with the dwellers on the 
other side of Buttertubs : those whom we talked with 
yesterday. " Mr. White, if you had wanted a wife, 
do you think you could choose one out of Swaledale?" 
was the question put to me by a strapping village lass 
before I had been three hours in Bainbridge. 

Fortune favoured me. I found here some worthy 
Quaker friends of mine, who had journeyed from Ox- 
fordshire to spend the holidays under the paternal 
rooftree. It was almost as if I had arrived at home 
myself; and although I had breakfasted at Hawes, 
they took it for granted that I would eat a lunch to 
keep up my strength till dinner-time. They settled a 
plan which would keep me till the morrow exploring 
the neighbourhood — a detention by no means to be 
repined at — and introduced me to a studious young 
dalesman, the village author, who knew every nook of 
the hills, every torrent and noteworthy site, and all 
the legends therewith associated for miles round, and 
who was to be my guide and companion. 

Away we rambled across the Ure to a small wooded 
hollow at the foot of Whitfell, in the hills which 
shut out Swaledale. It conceals a Hardraw Scar in 
miniature, shooting from an overhanging ledge of 
dark shale, in which are numerous fossil shells. 
From this we followed the hill upwards to Millgill 
Force, a higher fall, on another beck, overshadowed 
by firs and the mountain elm, and which Nature keeps 



236 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

as a shrine approachable only by the active foot and 
■willing heart. Now you must struggle through the 
tall grass and tangle on the precipitous sides high 
among the trees; now stride and scramble over the 
rocky masses in the bed of the stream. To sit and 
watch the fall deep under the canopy of leaves, 
catching glimpses of sunshine and of blue sky above, 
and to enjoy the delicious coolness, was the luxury of 
enjoyment. I could have sat for hours. Wordsworth 
came here during one of his excursions in Yorkshire; 
and if you wish to know what Millgill Force is, as 
painted by the pen, even the minute touches, read his 
description. 

But there is yet another — Whitfell Force — higher 
up, rarely visited, for the hill is steep and the way 
toilsome. My guide, however, was not less willing to 
lead than I to follow, and soon we were scrambling 
through the deepest ravine of all, where the sides, for 
the most part, afford no footing, not even for a goat, 
but rise in perpendicular walls, or lean over at the 
top. Here again the lavish foliage is backed by the 
dark stiff spines of firs, and every inch of ground, 
every cranny, all but the impenetrable face of the 
rock, is hidden by rank grasses, trailing weeds, 
climbers, periwinkle, woodbine, and ferns, among 
which the hart's-tongue throws out its large drooping 
clusters of graceful fronds. For greater part of the 
way we had to keep the bed of the stream; now 
squeezing ourselves between mighty lumps of lime- 
stone that nearly barred the passage, so that the 
stream itself could not get through without a struggle; 
now climbing painfully over where the crevices were 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 237 

too narrow; now zigzagging from side to side wher- 
ever the big stones afforded foothold, not without 
slips and splashes that multiplied our excitement; now 
pausing on a broad slab to admire the narrowing 
chasm and all its exquisite greenery. My companion 
pointed out a crystal pool in which he sometimes 
bathed — a bath that Naiads themselves might envy. 
In this way we came at length to a semicircular 
opening, and saw the fall tumbling from crag to crag 
for sixty feet, and dispersing itself into a Staubbach — a 
confused shower — before it fell into the channel be- 
neath. We both sat for a while without speaking, 
listening to the cool splash and busy gurgle as the 
water began its race down the hill; and, for my part, 
I felt that fatigue and labour were well repaid by the 
sight of so lovely a dell. 

Then by other paths we returned to the village, and 
mounted to the flat-topped grassy mound, which, 
Professor Phillips says, is an ancient gravel heap 
deposited by the action of water. The Romans, 
taking advantage of the site, levelled it, and esta- 
blished thereon a small camp. A statue and inscrip- 
tion and some other relics have been found, showing 
that in this remote spot, miles away from their main 
highway, the conquerors had a military station, finding 
it no doubt troublesome to keep the dalesmen of their 
day in order. 

Then we looked at a very, very old millstone, which 
now stands on its edge at the corner of a cottage, 
doing motionless duty as one end of a kennel. The 
dog creeps in through the hole in the middle. There 
it stands, an unsatisfactory antique, for no one knows 



238 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

anything about it. Of two others, however, which we 
next saw, something is known — the old horn and the 
old hornblower. Bainbridge was chief place of the forest 
of Wensleydale — of which the Duke of Leeds is now 
her Majesty's Ranger, and at the same time hereditary 
Constable and Lord of Middleham Castle — and from 
time immemorial the " forest horn" has been blown on 
the green, every night at ten o'clock, from the end of 
September to Shrovetide, and it is blown still ; for are 
not ancient customs all but immortal in our country? 
The stiff-jointed graybeard hearing that a curious 
stranger wished to look at the instrument, brought it 
forth. It is literally a horn — a large ox-horn, lengthened 
by a hoop of now rusty tin, to make up for the pieces 
which some time or other had been broken from its 
mouth. He himself had put on the tin years ago. Of 
course I was invited to blow a blast, and of course 
failed. My companion, however, could make it speak 
lustily; but the old man did best, and blew a long- 
sustained note, which proved him to be as good an 
economist of breath as a pearl-diver. For years had 
he thus blown, and his father before him. I could not 
help thinking of the olden time ere roads were made, 
and of belated travellers saved from perishing in the 
snow by that nightly signal. 

Now it was tea-time, and we had tea served after 
the Wensleydale manner — plain cakes and currant 
cakes, cakes hot and cold, and butter and cheese at 
discretion, with liberty to call for anything else that 
you like; and the more you eat and drink, the more 
will you rise in the esteem of your hospitable enter- 
tainers. And after that I went down to the hay- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 239 

field, for it was a large field, and the farmer longed to 
get the hay all housed before sunset. They don't carry 
hay in the dales, they "lead" it; and the two boys 
from Oxfordshire were not a little proud in having 
the " leading" assigned to them, seeing that they had 
nothing to do but ride the horse that drew the hay- 
sledge to and fro between the barn and the " wind- 
rows." Another difference is, that forks are not used 
except to pitch the hay from the sledge to the barn, 
all the rest — turning the swath, making into cocks — 
is done with the rake and by hand. So I took a rake, 
and beginning at one side of the field at the same time 
with an old hand, worked away so stoutly, that he had 
much ado to keep ahead of me. And so it went on, 
all hands working as if there were no such thing as 
weariness, load after load slipping away to the barn; 
and I unconsciously growing meritorious. * You're 
the first cockney I ever saw," said the stalwart farmer, 
" that knew how to handle a rake." Had I stayed 
with him a week, he would have discovered other of 
my capabilities equally praiseworthy. We should have 
accomplished the task and cleared the field; but a 
black cloud rose in the west, and soon sent down a 
heavy shower, and compelled us to huddle up the re- 
maining rows into cocks, and leave them till morning. 

Must I confess it? Haymaking with the blithe- 
some lasses in Ulrichsthal is a much more sprightly 
pastime than haymaking with the Quakers in Wensley- 
dale. 

The hay harvest is an exciting time in the dales, for 
grass is the only crop, and the cattle have to be fed all 
through the long months of winter, and sometimes far 



240 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

into a backward spring. Hence everything depends 
on the hay being carried and housed in good condi- 
tion; and many an anxious look is cast at passing 
clouds and distant hill-tops to learn the signs of the 
weather. The dalesmen are expert in the use of the 
scythe; and numbers of them, after their own hay- 
making is over, migrate into Holderness and other 
grain-growing districts, and mow down the crops, even 
the wheat-fields, with remarkable celerity. 

Many a hand had I to shake the next morning, 
when the moment came to say farewell. The student 
would not let me depart alone; he would go with 
me a few miles, and show me remarkable things by 
the way; and what was more, he would carry my 
knapsack. " You will have quite enough of it," he 
said, " before your travel is over." So I had to let 
him. We soon diverged from the road and began 
the ascent of Addleborough (Edel-burg), that noble 
hill which rises on the south-east of Bainbridge, rear- 
ing its rocky crest to a height of more than fifteen 
hundred feet. We took the shortest way, climbing 
the tall fences, struggling through heather, striding 
across bogs, and disturbing the birds. The curlews 
began their circling flights above our heads, and the 
grouse took wing with sudden flutter, eight or ten 
brace starting from a little patch that, to my inexpe- 
rience, seemed too small to hide a couple of chickens. 

My companion talked as only a dalesman can talk 
— as one whose whole heart is in his subject. None 
but a dalesman, he said, could read Wordsworth aright, ' 
or really love him. He could talk of the history of 
the dale, and of the ways of the people. His great- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 241 

grandmother was the first in Bainbridge who ever had 
a teapot. When tea first began to be heard of in 
those parts, a bagman called on an old farmer, and 
fascinated him so by praising the virtues of the new 
leaf from China, that with his wife's approval he 
ordered a " stean" to begin with. The trader ven- 
tured to suggest that a stone of tea would be a costly 
experiment, and sent them only a pound. Some months 
afterwards he called again for "money and orders," 
and asked how the worthy couple liked the tea. 
u Them was the nastiest greens we ever tasted," was 
the answer. "The parcel cam' one morning afore 
dinner, so the missus tied 'em up in a cloth and put 
'em into t' pot along wi' t' bacon. But we couldn't 
abear 'em when they was done ; and as for t' broth, we 
couldn't sup a drop on 't." 

Having climbed the last steep slope, we sat down in 
a recess of the rocky frontlet which the hill bears proudly 
on its brow, and there, sheltered from the furious wind, 
surveyed the scene below. We could see across the 
opposite fells, in places, to the summits on the farther 
side of Swaledale, and down Wensleydale for miles, 
and away to the blue range of the Hambleton hills 
that look into the Vale of York. Bainbridge appears 
as quiet as if it were taking holiday ; yonder, Askrigg 
twinkles under a thin white veil of smoke; and farther, 
Bolton Castle — once the prison of the unhappy Queen 
of Scots — shows its four square towers above a rising- 
wood: all basking in the glorious sunshine. Yet 
shadows are not wanting. Many a dark shade marks 
where a glen breaks the hill-sides: some resemble 
crooked furrows, trimmed here and there with a dull 
R 



242 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

green fringe, the tree-tops peeping out, and by these 
signs the beck we explored yesterday may be discerned 
on the opposite fell. Wherever that little patch of 
wood appears, there we may be sure a waterfall, though 
all unseen, is joining in the great universal chorus. 
Ure winds down the dale in many a shining curve, of 
which but one is visible between bright green meadow 
slopes, and belts, and clumps of wood, that broaden 
with the distance ; and all the landscape is studded with 
the little white squares — the homes of the dalesmen. 

Four miles below the stream rushes over great steps 
of limestone which traverse its bed at Aysgarth Force, 
and flows onwards past Penhill, the mountain of Wens- 
leydale, overtopping Addleborough by three hundred 
feet; past Witton Fell and its spring, still known as 
Diana's Bath ; past Leyburn, and its high natural ter- 
race — the Shawl, where- the " Queen's gap" reminds the 
visitor once more of Mary riding through surrounded 
by a watchful escort; past Middleham, where the 
lordly castle of the King-maker now stands in hopeless 
ruin, recalling the names of Anne of Warwick, Isa- 
bella of Clarence, Edward IV., and his escape from 
the haughty baron's snare ; of Richard of Gloucester, 
and others who figure in our national history; past 
Coverdale, the birthplace of that Miles Cover dale 
whose translation of the Bible will keep his memory 
green through many a generation, and the site of 
Coverham Abbey, of which but a few arches now re- 
main. It was built in 1214 for the Premonstratensians, 
or " White Canons," who never wore linen. Where 
the Cover falls into the Ure, spreads the meadow Ul- 
shaw, the place from which Oswin dismissed his army 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 243 

in 651. Tradition preserves the memory of Hugh de 
Moreville's seat, though not of the exact site, and thus 
associates the neighbourhood with one of the slayers 
of Becket. And at East Witton, beyond Coverham, 
are the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Jervaux — 
Jarvis Abbey, as the country folk call it — a relic dating 
from 1156. Plunderers and the weather had their 
own way with it until 1805, when the Earl of Ayles- 
bury, to whom the estate belongs, inspired by his 
steward's discovery of a tesselated pavement, stayed 
the progress of dilapidation, and had the concealing 
heaps of grass-grown rubbish dug away. Old Jen- 
kins, who died in 1670, remembered Jervaux as it 
stood in its prime : he had shared the dole given by 
the monks to poor wayfarers. He remembered, too, 
the mustering of the dalesmen under the banner of the 
good Lord Scroop of Bolton for the battle of Flodden, 
when 

" With him did wend all Wensleydale 
From Morton unto Morsdale moor ; 
All -they that dwell by the banks of Swale 
With him were bent in harness stour." 

At Spennithorne, a village over against Coverham, 
were born John Hutchinson, the opponent of Newton, 
and Hatfield the crazy, who fired at George III. The 
philosopher — who was a yeoman's son — made some 
stir in his day by publishing Moses's Principia, in op- 
position to Sir Isaac's, and by his collection of fossils, 
out of which he contrived arguments against geologists. 
This collection was bequeathed to Dr. Woodward, and 
eventually became part of the museum in the Univer- 
sity of Cambridge. 

r2 



244 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Looking across the dale, somewhat to the right of 
Bainbridge, we see Nappa Hall, long the seat of the 
Metcalfes. In Queen Mary's time, Sir Christopher 
Metcalfe was sheriff, and he met the judges at York 
at the head of three hundred knights, all dressed 
alike, and all of his own name and family. The name 
is still a common one in the North Riding, as you will 
soon discover on the front of public-houses, over the 
door at toll-bars, and on the sides of carts and wagons. 
The present Lord Metcalfe had a Guisborough man for 
his father. A Metcalfe, born at Coverhead, is said to 
have made Napoleon's coffin at St. Helena. One of 
the fighting men who distinguished themselves at 
Agincourt was a Metcalfe. The Queen of Scots' bed- 
stead is still preserved at Nappa. Raleigh once visited 
the Hall, and brought with him — so the story goes — 
the first crayfish ever seen in the dale. Another visitor 
was that cruel pedant, Royal Jamie, who scrupled not 
to cut off Raleigh's head — a far better one than his 
own — and concerning him we are told that he rode 
across the Ure on the back of one of the serving-men. 
Perhaps the poor serving-man felt proud all his life 
after. 

If to dream about the Past by the side of a spring 
be one of your pleasures, you may enjoy it here in 
Wensleydale with many a change of scene. Besides 
Diana's Bath, already mentioned, St. Simon's Spring- 
still bubbles up at Coverham, St. Alkelda's at Middle- 
ham, and the Fairies' Well at Hornby. To this last 
an old iron cup was chained, which a late local anti- 
quary fondly thought might be one of those which 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 245 

King Edwin ordered to be fastened to running springs 
throughout his territories. 

Celt and Northman have left their traces. The 
grandmothers of the children who now play in the 
village could remember the Beltane bonfires, and the 
wild dances around them. The Danes peopled the 
gloomy savage parts of the glen with their imaginary 
black alfs. An old couplet runs: 

" Druid, Roman, Scandinavia 
Stone Raise, on Addleboro'." 

So we sat and talked, and afterwards scrambled up 
the rocks to the summit. Here is, or rather was, a 
Druid circle of flat stones ; but my companion screamed 
with vexation on discovering that three or four of the 
largest stones had been taken away, and were no- 
where to be seen. The removal must have been re- 
cent, for the places where they lay were still sharply 
defined in the grass, and the maze of roots which had 
been covered for ages was still unbleached. And so 
an ancient monument must be destroyed either out 
of wanton mischief, or to be broken up for the repair 
of a fence ! Whoever were the perpetrators, I say, 

" Oh, be their tombs as lead to lead." 

We walked across the top to Stain-Ray, or Stone 
Raise, a great cromlech or cairn 360 feet in circum- 
ference. You would perhaps regard it as nothing more 
than a huge irregular mound of lumps of gritstone 
bleached by the weather, with ferns and moss growing 
in the interstices, but within there are to be seen the re- 



246 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

mains of three cysts, of which only one retains a definite 
form. It is said that a skeleton was discovered therein. 
Tradition tells of a giant who was once travelling with a 
chest of gold on his back from Skipton Castle to Pen- 
dragon; while crossing Addleborough he felt weary, 
and his burden slipped, but recovering himself, he 
cried, 

" Spite of either God or man, 
To Pendragon castle thou shalt gang," 

when it fell from his shoulders, sank into the earth, 
and the stones rose over it. There the chest remained, 
and still remains, only to be recovered by the fortu- 
nate mortal to whom the fairy may appear in the form 
of a hen or an ape. He has then but to stretch forth 
his arm, seize the chest, and drag it out, in silence if 
he can, at all events without swearing, or he will fail, 
as did that unfortunate wight, who, uttering an oath in 
the moment of success, lost his hold of the treasure, 
and saw the fairy no more as long as he lived. 

We descended into the hollow between Addle- 
borough and Stake Fell, crossing on the way the 
natural terrace that runs along the southern and 
western sides of the hill, to look at a cluster of heaps 
of stone, and low, irregular walls or fences, the plan of 
which appears to show a series of enclosures opening 
one into the other. My friend had long made up his 
mind that these were the remains of an ancient British 
village. For my part, I could not believe that a vil- 
lage old as the Roman conquest would leave vestiges of 
such magnitude after the lapse of nearly two thousand 
years; whereupon, arguments, and learned ones, were 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 247 

adduced, until I half admitted the origin assigned. 
But a few days later I saw an enclosure in Wharfe- 
dale identical in form with any one of these, used as a 
sheepfold, and all my doubts came back with re- 
newed force. In the Ordnance maps, the description 
is u ancient enclosures ;" and, to give an off-hand 
opinion, it appears to me probable that this outlying 
hollow may have been chosen as a safe place for the 
flocks in the troublous days of old. 

Stake Fell is 1843 feet in height, rising proudly on 
our left. Beneath us, in the valley Ray or Roedale, 
a branch of Wensleydale, spreads Simmer Water, a 
lake of one hundred and five acres. Shut in by hills, 
and sprinkled with wood around its margin, it beauti- 
fies and enlivens the landscape. It abounds in trout, 
moreover, and bream and grayling, and any one who 
chooses may fish therein, as well as in the Ure, all the 
way down to Bainbridge, and farther. The river trout 
are considered far superior to those of the lake. We 
made haste down, after a pause to observe the view, 
for dinner awaited us in a pleasant villa overlooking 
the bright rippling expanse. 

When we started anew, some two hours later, our 
hospitable entertainer would accompany us. We 
walked round the foot of the lake, and saw on the 
margin, near the break where the Bain flows out, two 
big stones which have lain in their present position 
ever since the devil and a giant pelted one another 
from hill to hill across the water. To corroborate the 
legend, there yet remain on the stones the marks — 
and prodigious ones they are — of the Evil One's 



248 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

hands. To me the marks appeared more like the 
claws of an enormous bird, compared with which Dr. 
Mantell's Dinorriis would be but a chicken. 

Long, long ago, while the Apostles still walked the 
earth, a poor old man wandered into Raydale, where 
a large city then stood, and besought alms from house 
to house. Every door was shut against him, save one, 
an humble cot without the city wall, where the in- 
mates bade him welcome, and set oaten bread and 
milk cheese before him, and prepared him a pallet 
whereon to sleep. On the morrow, the old man pro- 
nounced a blessing on the house and departed; but as 
he went forth, he turned, and looking on the city, 
thus spake: 

" Semer Water rise, Semer Water sink, 
And swallow all the town 
Save this little house 
Where they gave me meat and drink." 

Whereupon followed the roar of an earthquake, and 
the rush of water; the city sank down and a broad 
lake rolled over its site ; but the charitable couple who 
lodged the stranger were preserved, and soon by some 
miraculous means they found themselves rich, and a 
blessing rested on them and their posterity. 

Besides the satanic missiles, there are stones some- 
where on the brink of the lake known as the " Mer- 
maid Stones," but not one of us knew where to look 
for them, so we set our faces towards Counterside, the 
hill on the northern side of the vale, and trudged 
patiently up the steep ascent in the hot afternoon 
sun, repaid by the widening prospect. We could see 
where waterfalls were rushing in the little glens at the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 249 

head of the dale, and the shadow of hills in the lake, 
and the remotest village, Stalling Busk, said to be a 
place of unusual thrift. Even in that remote nook, 
you would find the dalesmen's maxim kept from rust- 
ing, as well in the villages lower down and nearer the 
world: it is — "I don't want to chate, or to be chated; 
but if it must be one or t'other, why, then, I wouldn't 
be chated." It is no scandal to say that money- 
grubbing in the dale is proverbial. " Look at that 
man," said my Quaker friend at Bainbridge, pointing 
out what looked like a labourer driving a cart ; " that 
man is worth thousands." I did not hear, however, 
that he made an offensive use of his talent, as certain 
money-grubbers do in the neighbourhood of large 
towns. " He's got nought," exclaimed a coarse, rich 
man near Hull, slapping his pocket, of a poor man 
who differed from him in opinion : u he's got nought 
— what should he know about it ?" 

We went down on the other slope of Counterside 
with Hawes in sight, and Cam Fell, a long ridgy 
summit more than 1900 feet high. I preferred to 
double it rather than go over it, and having shifted 
the knapsack to my own shoulders, shook hands with 
my excellent friends, and choosing short cuts so as to 
avoid the town, came in about an hour to the steep 
lonely road which turns up into Widdale, beyond the 
farther end of Hawes. 

We shall return to Wensleydale a few days hence; 
meanwhile, good-natured reader, Widdale stretches 
before us, the road rising with little interruption for 
miles. Two hours of brisk walking will carry us 
through it between great wild hill slopes, which are 



250 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

channelled here and there by the dry, stony bed of a 
torrent. The evening closes in heavy and lowering, 
and Cam Fell and Widdale Fell uprear their huge 
forms on the right and left in sullen gloom, and ap- 
pear the more mountainous. Ere long thick mists 
overspread their summits, and send ragged wreaths 
down the hollows, and much of the landscape becomes 
dim, and we close our day with a view of Nature in 
one of her mysterious moods. We ascend into the 
bleak region, pass the bare little hamlet of Redshaw, 
catch a dull glimpse of Ingleborough, with its broad flat 
summit, and then at six miles from Hawes, come to 
the lonesome public-house at Newby Head. 

It is a modest house, a resort for cattle-dealers from 
Scotland, and head-quarters for shepherds and la- 
bourers. The fare is better than the lodging. Three 
kinds of cakes, eggs, and small pies of preserved bil- 
berries, were set before me at tea ; but the bed, though 
the sheets were clean, had a musty smell of damp 
straw. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 251 



CHAPTER XXI. 

About Gimmer Hogs — Gearstones — Source of the Ribble — Weathercote 
Cave — An underground Waterfall — A Gem of a Cave — Jingle Pot — 
The silly Ducks — Hurtle Pot — The Boggart — A Reminiscence of the 
Doctor — Chapel-le-Dale — Remarkable Scenery — Ingleborough — 
Ingleton — Craven — Young Daniel Dove, and Long Miles — Clapham 
— Ingleborough Cave — Stalactite and Stalagmite — Marvellous 
Spectacle — Pillar Hall — Weird Music — Treacherous Pools— The 
Abyss — How Stalactite forms — The Jockey Cap — Cross Arches — 
The Long Gallery— The Giants' Hall— Mysterious Waterfall— A 
Trouty Beck — The Bar Parlour — A Bradford Spinner. 

On the way hither, I had noticed what was to me a 
novel mode of bill-sticking, that is, on the sharp 
spines of tall thistles by the wayside. The bills ad- 
vertised Gimmer Hogs for sale, a species of animal that 
I had never before heard of, and I puzzled myself not 
a little in guessing what they could be. For although 
Gimmer is good honest Danish, signifying a ewe that 
has not yet lambed, the connexion between sheep and 
swine is not obvious to the uninitiated. However, it 
happened that I sat down to breakfast with a Scottish 
grazier who had arrived soon after daybreak, and he 
told me that sheep not more than one year old are 
called Gimmer hogs ; but why the word hogs should 
be used to describe ewes he could not tell. 

The morning was dull and drizzly, and by the time 
I had crossed to Ingleton Fell, from the North to the 



252 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 

West Riding, a swift, horizontal rain came on, la- 
borious to walk against, and drove me for shelter into 
the Gearstones Inn. Of the two or three houses here- 
abouts, one is a school; and in this wild spot a Wed- 
nesday market is held. Ingleborough is in sight; the 
hills around form pleasing groups, and had we time to 
explore them, we should find many a rocky glen, and 
curious cave, Catknot Hole, Alum Pot, Long Churn, 
and Dicken Pot ; and many a sounding ghyll, as the 
folk here call it — that is, a waterfall. Not far from the 
inn is Galebeck, the source of the Ribble; and as 
we proceed down the now continuous descent, so do 
the features of the landscape grow more romantic. 

For more than an hour did the rain-storm sweep 
across the hills, holding me prisoner. At length faint 
gleams of sunshine broke through; I started afresh, 
and three miles farther was treading on classic ground 
— Chapel-le-Dale. Turn in at the second gate on the 
right beyond the public-house, and you will soon have 
speech with Mr. Metcalfe, who keeps the key of 
Weathercote Cave. Standing on a sheltered valley 
slope, with a flower-garden in front and trees around, 
his house presents a favourable specimen of a yeoman's 
residence. No lack of comfort here, I thought, on 
seeing the plenteous store of oaten bread on the racks 
in the kitchen. Nor is there any lack of attention to 
the visitor's wishes on the part of Mr. Metcalfe. He 
unlocks a door, and leads the way down a steep, rude 
flight of steps into a rocky chasm, from which ascends 
the noise of falling water. A singularly striking scene 
awaits you. The rocks are thickly covered in places with 
ferns and mosses, and are broken up by crevices into a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 253 

diversity of forms, rugged as chaos. A few feet down, 
and you see a beautiful crystalline spring in a cleft on 
the right, and the water turning the moss to stone as 
it trickles down. A few feet lower and you pass 
under a natural bridge formed by huge fallen blocks. 
The stair gets rougher, twisting among the big, damp 
lumps of limestone, when suddenly your guide points 
to the fall at the farther extremity of the chasm. The 
rocks are black, the place is gloomy, imparting thereby 
a surprising effect to the white rushing column of 
water. A beck running down the hill finds its way 
into a crevice in the cliffs, from which it leaps in one 
great fall of more than eighty feet, roaring loudly. 
Look up : the chasm is so narrow that the trees and 
bushes overhang and meet overhead; and what with 
the subdued light, and mixture of crags and verdure, 
and the impressive aspect of the place altogether, you 
will be lost in admiration. 

To descend lower seems scarcely possible, but you 
do get down, scrambling over the big stones to the very 
bottom, into the swirling shower of spray. Here a deep 
recess, or chamber at one side, about eight feet in 
height, affords good standing ground, whence you may 
see that the water is swallowed up at once, and dis- 
appears in the heap of pebbles on which it falls. Con- 
versation is difficult here, for the roar is overpowering. 
After I had stood some minutes in contemplation, Mr. 
Metcalfe told me that it was possible to get behind the 
fall and look through it, taking care to run quickly 
across the strong blast that meets you on starting from 
the recess. I buttoned my overcoat to my chin, and 
rushed into the cavity, and looked upwards. I was in 



254 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIKE. 

a pit 120 feet deep, covered by a tumultuous curtain 
of water, but had to make a speedy retreat, so fu- 
riously was I enveloped by blinding spray. To make 
observations from that spot one should wear a suit of 
waterproof. 

Through the absence of sunshine I lost the sight 
of the rainbow which is seen for about two hours in 
the middle of the day from the front of the fall. It is 
a horizontal bow with the convex side towards the 
water, shifting its position higher or lower as you 
mount or descend. 

Although it might now be properly described as a 
pit, the chasm gives you the impression of a cave of 
which the roof has fallen in. If this be so, the fall 
was once entirely underground, roaring day and night 
in grim darkness. It may still be regarded as an 
underground fall, for the throat from which it leaps is 
more than thirty feet below the surface. In the cleft 
above this throat a thick heavy slab is fixed in a 
singular position, just caught, as it seems, by two of 
its corners, so that you fancy it ready to tumble at 
any moment with the current that shoots so swiftly 
beneath it. As you pause often to look back on the 
roaring stream, and up to the impending crags, you 
will heartily confirm Professor Sedgwick — who by 
the way is a Yorkshireman — in his opinion, that if 
Weathercote Cave be small, it is a very gem. Nor 
will you grudge the shilling fee for admission. 

The extreme length of the pit is about 180 feet. 
In rainy weather it becomes a sink-hole into which 
the streams pour from all the slopes around, at 
times filling it to the brim and running over. Mr. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIEE. 255 

Metcalfe showed me the stem of a tree entangled 
in the crevices near the top, which had been floated 
there by the floods of the previous winter. While 
coming slowly up, I could not fail to notice the 
change of temperature, from the chill damp that made 
me shiver, to a pleasant warmth, and then to the 
heavy heat of a dull day in July. 

A little way below the house, going down the narrow 
dale, you come to another mossy crevice in the rocks 
among the trees to which the country folk have given 
the name of Gingle, or Jingle Pot, because of a cer- 
tain jingling sound produced by stones when thrown 
therein. To my ear there was no ring in the sound. 
It is quite dry, with a bottom sloping steeply and 
making a sudden turn to a depth of eighty feet. Mr. 
Metcalfe had let himself down into the Pot by a rope, 
two days before my arrival, to look for a young cow 
that had fallen in while on the gad, and disappeared 
in the lowest hole. He saw the animal dead, and so 
tightly wedged in under the rock, that there he left it. 
This was his second descent. The first was made in 
winter some years ago to rescue his ducks, which, per- 
haps deceived by the dark crevice, that looked like a 
deep narrow pond when all the ground was white with 
snow, took altogether a sudden flight to settle on it, 
and of course went to the bottom. Mr. Metcalfe was 
driving them home at the time; he looked over the 
edge of the Pot, and invited the silly birds to fly out. 
But no, they would not be persuaded to use their 
wings, and remained crowded together on the highest 
part of the slope, stretching their necks upwards. So 
there was nothing for it but to fetch them out. Their 



256 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

owner let himself down ; yet after all his trouble the 
ungrateful creatures refused as long as possible to be 
put into the bag. 

Farther down again, and you come to Hurtle Pot, 
a gloomy cavity overhung by trees, and mantled with 
ivy, ferns, and coarse weeds. At the bottom rests a 
darksome pool, said to be twenty-seven feet deep, which 
contains small trout, and swallows up rocks and stones, 
or whatever may be thrown into it, without any per- 
ceptible diminution of the depth. You can get down 
to the edge of the water by an inconvenient path, and 
feel the gloom, and find excuses for the rustics who 
believe in the existence of the Hurtle Pot Boggart. 
In olden time his deeds were terrible; but of late years 
he only frightens people with noises. Both this and 
Jingle Pot are choked with water from subterranean 
channels in flood time, and then there is heard here 
such an intermittent throbbing, gurgling noise, ac- 
companied by what seem dismal gaspings, that a timor- 
ous listener might easily believe the Boggart was 
drowning his victims. One evening a loving couple, 
walking behind the trees above the Pot, heard most 
unearthly noises arise from the murky chasm ; never 
had the like been heard before. Surely, thought the 
turtle-doves, the Boggart is coming forth with some 
new trick, and they fled in terror. A friend of Mr. 
Metcalfe's was playing his flute down on the edge of 
the pool. 

Again farther, and there is the little chapel from 
which the dale takes its name. As I have said, we are 
here on classic ground. That is the edifice, and this 
is the place described by Southey. Here dwelt that 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 257 

worthy yeoman, Daniel Dove's father, and his fathers 
before him, handing down their six-and-twenty acres, 
and better yet, an honest name, from one to the other 
through many generations — yea, from time imme- 
morial. One of those good old families which had an- 
cestors before the Conquest. Give me leave, good-na- 
tured reader, to complete my sketch by the description 
as it appears, with masterly touches, in The Doctor. 

u The little church called Chapel-le-Dale, stands 
about a bowshot from the family house. There they 
had all been carried to the font; there they had each 
led his bride to the altar; and thither they had, each 
in his turn, been borne upon the shoulders of their 
friends and neighbours. Earth to earth they had been 
consigned there for so many generations, that half of 
the soil of the churchyard consisted of their remains. 
A hermit who might wish his grave to be as quiet as 
his cell, could imagine no fitter resting-place. On 
three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather 
to mark the limits of the sacred ground, than to enclose 
it; on the fourth it was bounded by the brook, whose 
waters proceed by a subterraneous channel from Wea- 
thercote Cave. Two or three alders and rowan-trees 
hung over the brook, and shed their leaves and seeds 
into the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals 
along the lines of the wall; and a few ash-trecs as the 
winds had sown them. To the east and west some fields 
adjoined it, in that state of half cultivation which gives 
a human character to solitude: to the south, on the 
other side the brook, the common with its limestone 
rocks peering everywhere above ground, extended to 

S 



258 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered 
with birch, sheltered it from the north. 

" The turf was as soft and fine as that of the adjoin- 
ing hills; it was seldom broken, so scanty was the 
population to which it was appropriated; scarcely a 
thistle or a nettle deformed it, and the few tombstones 
which had been placed there, were now themselves 
half buried. The sheep came over the wall when 
they listed, and sometimes took shelter in the porch 
from the storm. Their voices and the cry of the kite 
wheeling above, were the only sounds which were 
heard there, except when the single bell which hung 
in its niche over the entrance tinkled for service on the 
Sabbath day, or with a slower tongue gave notice that 
one of the children of the soil was returning to the 
earth from which he sprung." 

Is not that charming ? — a word-picture, worthy of a 
master's pen. One error, however, has slipped in. 
There is no porch, nor any sign that one has ever 
been. The chapel will hold eighty persons, and is, as 
Mr. Metcalfe informed me, " never too small." 

A week or more might be spent in explorations in 
this neighbourhood. Five miles down towards Kirkby 
Lonsdale, there is Thornton Force. Near it is Yordas 
Cave — once the haunt of a giant ; Gatekirk Cave is 
distant about half an hour's walk; Douk Hole is in the 
neighbourhood of Ingleton; and in all the region, and 
over the Westmoreland border, there is a highly pic- 
turesque succession of caves, ravines, glens, and tor- 
rents dashing through rocky chasms, and of all the 
magnificent phenomena only to be seen amid the lime- 
stone. Many a tourist hurries past on his way to the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 259 

Lakes all unmindful of scenery which, in its kind, 
surpasses any that he will see between Windermere 
and Bassenthwaite. 

I went up to the public-house and dined with the 
haymakers, and enjoyed the sight of sunburnt rustics 
eating smoking mutton pie without stint, as much as I 
did my own repast. The host's daughter brought me 
a book, which had only recently been provided to re- 
ceive the names of visitors. Among them was the 
autograph of a Russian gentleman who had called 
within the week, and who, as I heard, did nothing 
but grumble at English customs, yet could not help 
praising the scenery. He was on foot, and with knapsack 
on shoulder. I crossed his track, and heard of him 
sundry times afterwards, and hoped to meet him, that 
I might ask leave to enlighten him on a few points 
concerning which he appeared to be distressingly igno- 
rant. 

I had planned to ascend and cross Ingleborough, 
and drop down upon Clapham from its southern side ; 
but when a hill is half buried in mist, and furious 
scuds fly across its brow, it is best to be content with 
the valley. So I took up my route on the main road, 
and continued down the dale, where the limestone 
crags breaking out on each side form a series of ir- 
regular terraces, intermingled green and gray, pleasing 
to the eye. In the bottom, on the right, the subter- 
ranean river bursts forth which Goldsmith mentions in 
his Natural History. 

The height of Ingleborough is 2361 feet. Its name 
is supposed to be derived from Ingle-burg — a word 
which embodies the idea of fire and fortress. It is a 

S2 



260 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

table mountain, with a top so flat and spacious that an 
encampment of more than fifteen acres, of which the 
traces are still visible, was established thereon, probably 
by the Brigantes, if not by an earlier race. It is a land- 
mark for vessels on the coast of Lancashire. St. George's 
Channel is visible from the summit; and one who has 
looked on the eastern sea from Flamborough Head may 
find it convenient to remember that Yorkshire, on its 
westernmost extremity, is but ten miles from the 
western sea. 

In a short hour from Weathercote you come to the 
end of the fells, an abrupt descent, all rough with 
crags and boulders, where the view opens at once over 
the district of Craven, and the little town of Ingleton 
is seen comfortably nestled under the hill. Craven 
lies outspread in beauty — woods, hills, fields, and pas- 
tures charming the eye of one who comes from the 
untilled moors, and suggestive of delightful rambles in 
store. The Ribble flows through it, watering many a 
romantic cliff and wooded slope. And for the geologist 
Craven possesses especial interest, for it is intersected 
by what he calls a "fault," on the southern side of 
which the limestone strata are thrown down a thousand 
feet. 

I left Ingleton on the right, and turned off at the 
cross-roads for Clapham, distant four miles. Here, as 
in other parts of my travel, the miles seemed long — 
quite as long as they were found to be years ago. We 
are told that when young Daniel Dove walked duti- 
fully every day to school, "the distance was in those 
days called two miles ; but miles of such long measure 
that they were for him a good hour's walk at a cheerful 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 261 

pace." On the way from Mickle Fell to Brough I 
met with a more unkindly experience; and that was 
an hour's walking for a single mile. 

The road undulating along the hill-side commands 
pleasing views, and for one on foot is to be preferred 
to the new road, which winds among the fields below. 
And with a brightening evening we come to Clapham 
— a cheerful, pretty village, adorned with flowers, and 
climbers, and smooth grass-plots, embowered by trees, 
and watered by a merry brook; lying open to the sun 
on the roots of Ingleborough. Looking about for an 
inn, I saw the Bull and Cave, and secured quarters 
there by leaving my knapsack, and set out to seek for 
the guide, whom I found chatting with a group of 
loungers on the bridge. Bull and Cave seemed to me 
such an odd coupling, that I fancied cave must be a 
Yorkshire way of spelling calf; but it really means 
that which it purports, and the two words are yoked 
together in order that visitors, who are numerous, may 
be easily attracted. 

Here in Clapdale — a dale which penetrates the 
slopes of Ingleborough — is the famous Ingleborough 
Cave, the deepest and most remarkable of all the caves 
hitherto discovered in the honeycombed flanks of that 
remarkable hill. Intending to see this, I left un- 
visited the other caves which have been mentioned as 
lying to the right and left of the road as you come 
down from Gearstones. 

The fee for a single person to see the cave is half-a- 
crown; for a party of eight or ten a shilling each. 
The guide, who is an old soldier, and a good specimen 
of the class, civil and intelligent, called at his house as 



262 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

we passed to get candles, and presently we were clear 
of the village, and walking up-hill along a narrow lane. 
Below us on the right lay cultivated grounds and 
well-kept plantations, through which, as the old man 
told me, visitors were once allowed to walk on their 
way to the cave — a pleasing and much less toilsome way 
than the lane; but the remains of picnics left on the 
grass, broken bottles, orange-peels, greasy paper and 
wisps of hay, became such a serious abuse of the pri- 
vilege, that Mr. Farrer, the proprietor, withdrew his 
permission. " It's a wonder to me," said the guide, 
u that people shouldn't know how to behave them- 
selves." 

In about half an hour we came to a hollow between 
two grassy acclivities, out of which runs a rapid beck, 
and here on the left, in a limestone cliff prettily screened 
by trees, is the entrance to the cave, a low, wide arch 
that narrows as it recedes into the gloom. We walked 
in a few yards ; the guide lit two candles, placed one 
in my hand and unlocked the iron gate, which, very 
properly, keeps out the perpetrators of wanton mischief. 
A few paces take us beyond the last gleam of daylight, 
and we are in a narrow passage, of which the sides and 
roof are covered with a brown incrustation resembling 
gigantic clusters of petrified moss. Curious mushroom- 
like growths hang from the roof, and throwing his 
light on these, the guide says we are passing through 
the Inverted Forest. So it continues, the roof still 
low, for eighty yards, comprising the Old Cave, which 
has been known for ages; and we come to a narrow 
passage hewn through a thick screen of stalagmite. It 
was opened twenty years ago by Mr. Farrer's gardener, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 263 

who laboured at the barrier until it was breached, and 
a new cavern of marvellous formation was discovered 
beyond. An involuntary exclamation broke from me 
as I entered and beheld what might have been taken 
for a glittering fairy palace. On each side, sloping 
gently upwards till they met the roof, great bulging 
masses of stalagmite of snowy whiteness lay outspread, 
mound after mound glittering as with millions of 
diamonds. For the convenience of explorers, the 
passage between them has been widened and levelled 
as far as possible, and the beck that we saw outside 
finds a channel after unusual rains. You walk along this 
passage now on sand, now on pebbles, now bare rock. 
All the great white masses are damp ; their surfaces 
are rough with countless crystallized convolutions and 
minute ripples, between which trickle here and there 
tiny threads of water. It is to the moisture that the 
unsullied whiteness is due, and the glistening effect; 
for wherever stalactite or stalagmite becomes dry, the 
colour changes to brown, as we saw in the Old Cave. 
A strange illusion came over me as I paced slowly 
past the undulating ranges, and for a moment they 
seemed to represent the great rounded snow-fields that 
whiten the sides of the Alps. 

The cavern widens ; we are in the Pillar Hall ; sta- 
lactites of all dimensions hang from the roof, singly 
and in groups. Thousands are mere nipples, or an inch 
or two in length ; many are two or three feet ; and the 
whole place resounds with the drip and tinkle of 
water. Stalagmites dot the floor, and while some have 
grown upwards the stalactites have grown downwards, 
until the ends meet, and the ceaseless trickle of water 



264 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

fashions an unbroken crystal pillar. Some stalactites 
assume a spiral twist; and where a long thin fissure 
occurs in the roof they take the form of draperies, 
curtains, and wings — wings shaped like those of angels. 
The guide strikes one of the wings with a small mallet, 
and it gives out a rich musical note; another has the 
deep sonorous boom of a cathedral bell, another rings 
sharp and shrill, and a row of stalactitic leaves answers 
when touched with a gamut of notes. Your imagina- 
tion grows restless w T hile you listen to such strange 
music deep in the heart of a mountain. 

And there are pools on the floor, and in raised basins 
at the side — pools of water so limpid as to be treache- 
rous, for in the uncertain light all appears to be solid 
rock. I stepped knee deep into one, mistaking it for 
an even floor. Well for me it was not the Abyss 
which yawns at the end of Pillar Hall. The guide, to 
show the effect of light reflected on the water, crawls 
up to the end of one of the basins with the two 
candles in his hand, while you standing in the gloom 
at the other end, observe the smooth brilliant surface, 
and the brightness that flashes from every prominence 
of roof or wall. 

Although geologists explain the process of formation, 
there is yet much food for wonder in remembering that 
all these various objects were formed by running water. 
The water, finding its way through fissures in the 
mighty bed of limestone overhead, hangs in drops, one 
drop pushes another off, but not idly; for while the 
current of air blowing through carries off their car- 
bonic acid, they give up the salt of lime gathered 
during percolation, and form small stony tubes. And 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 265 

these tubes, the same cause continuing to operate, grow in 
course of ages to magnificent stalactites; and where thin, 
broad streams have appeared, there the draperies and 
wings and the great snow-fields have been fashioned. 
The incrustation spreads even over some of the pools: 
the film of water flowing in leaves its solid contents on 
the margin, and these, crystallizing and accumulating, 
advance upon the surface, as ice forms from the edge 
towards the centre of a pond, and in time bridge it 
over with a translucent sheet. 

Among the stalagmites are a few of beehive shape; 
but there is one named the Jockey Cap, an extraor- 
dinary specimen for bigness. Its base has a circum- 
ference of ten feet, its height is two feet, all produced 
by a succession of drops from one single point. Ad- 
vantage has been taken of this circumstance to measure 
the rate of its growth. Mr. Farrer collected a pint 
of drops, and ascertained the fall to be one hundred 
pints a day, each pint containing one grain of calca- 
reous matter; and from this daily supply of a hundred 
grains the Jockey Cap was built up to its present 
dimensions in two hundred and fifty-nine years. In six 
years, from 1845 to 1851, the diameter increased by 
two, and the height by three inches. Probably owing 
to the morning's rain, the drops fell rapidly while I 
stood looking at the Cap — splash — splash — splash — 
into a small saucer-like depression in the middle of 
the crown, from which with ceaseless overflow the 
water bathes the entire mass. Around it is the most 
drippy part of the cave. 

In places there are sudden breaks in the roof at 
right angles to the passage — cracks produced by the 



266 A MONTH m YORKSHIKE. 

cooling of this great limestone bubble in the primeval 
days — which look as if Nature had begun to form a 
series of cross aisles, and then held her hand. Some 
of these are nests of stalactites ; one exhibits architec- 
tural forms adorned with beads and mouldings as if 
sculptured in purest marble. The farther you penetrate 
the loftier do they become ; impressing you with the 
idea that they are but the ante-chambers of some ma- 
jestic temple farther within. The Abyss appears to be 
a similar arch reversed in the floor. 

Then we came to a bend where the roof rushing 
down appears to bar all further advance, but the guide 
puts a thing into your hand which you might take to 
be a scrubbing-brush, and telling you to stoop, creeps 
into a low opening between the rising floor and de- 
scending roof, and you discover that the scrubbing- 
brush is a paddle to enable you to walk on three legs 
while crouching down. It keeps your right hand 
from the slippery rock; your left has always enough 
to do in holding the candle. The creeping continues 
but for a few yards, and you emerge into one of the 
cross vaults, and again sand and pebbles form the 
floor. Then comes the Cellar Gallery, a long, tunnel- 
like passage, the sides perpendicular, the roof arched, 
which, like all the rest, has been shaped by currents 
of water, aided in this case by the grinding action of 
sand and pebbles. Continuing through thousands of 
years, the result is as we behold it. The tunnel ap- 
pears the more gloomy from the absence of ornament : 
no stalactites, no wings, reflect the dim candle-flame; 
for which reason, as well as to avoid the creeping, 
many visitors refuse to advance beyond the entrance 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIKE. 267 

of the Long Gallery. But the tunnel leads you into 
the Giant's Hall, where stalactites and draperies again 
meet your eye, and where your light is all too feeble 
to illumine the lofty roof. And here is the end, 2106 
feet from the entrance — nearly half a mile. From the 
time that the gardener broke through the barrier in 
the old cave, two years were spent in gradual advances 
till the Giant's Hall was reached. The adventurous 
explorers endeavoured to get farther, for two small 
holes were discovered leading downwards from one 
side of the Hall to a lower cave, through which arose 
the sound of falling water. They braved the danger, 
and let themselves down to a level, where they were 
stopped by a deep pool — the receiver of the fall. It 
must have looked fearfully dismal. Yet might there 
not be caverns still more wonderful beyond ? Fixing 
a candle to his cap, and with a rope round his body, 
Mr. James Farrer swam across the murky lake, but 
found it closed in by what appeared to be an im- 
passable wall of limestone — the heart of Ingleborough. 
It was a courageous adventure. 

I stretched out my candle and peered down the two 
holes. One is dry and sandy, the other slimy with a 
constant drip. I heard the noise of the fall, the voice 
of the water plunging for ever, night and day, in deep 
darkness. It seemed awful. A current of air blows 
forth continually, whereby the cave is ventilated 
throughout its entire length, and the visitor, safe from 
stagnant damps and stifling vapours, breathes freely 
in a pure atmosphere. 

I walked once more from end to end of the Hall; 
and we retraced our steps. In the first cross aisle the 



268 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

guide made me aware of an echo which came back to 
the ear as a hollow moan. We crept through into 
Pillar Hall, and I could not help lingering once more 
to admire the brilliant and delicate incrustations, and 
to scramble between or over the great stalagmitic 
barriers to see what was in the rear. Here and there 
I saw a mass resembling a font, filled with water of 
exquisite purity, or raised oval or oblong basins repre- 
senting alabaster baths, wherein none but vestal virgins 
might enter. 

Except that the path has been levelled and widened, 
and openings enlarged, and planks laid in one place to 
facilitate access to a change of level, the cave remains 
as when first discovered. Mr. Farrer's precautions 
against mischief have prevented that pillage of the in- 
terior so much to be deplored in other caves of this 
region, where the first comers made prize of all the 
ornaments within reach, and left little but bare walls 
for those who follow. Yet even here some of the 
smaller stalactites, the size of a finger, have been 
missed after a party has gone through; and once a 
man struck a group of stalactites and broke more than 
a foot off the longest, in sheer wantonness, as it seemed, 
for the fragment was too heavy to carry away. And 
there the mutilation remains, a lasting reproach to a 
fool. 

My candle burnt out, and the other flickered near 
its end, but the old man had two halves which he lit, 
and these more than sufficed for our return. The red 
light of sunset was streaming into the entrance when 
we came forth after a sojourn of nearly two hours in 
the bowels of the mountain. The guide had been 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 269 

very indulgent with me; for most visitors stay but an 
hour. Those who merely wish to walk through, con- 
tent with a hasty glance, will find little to impede 
their movements. There is nothing, indeed, which 
need deter a woman, only she must leave her hoop at 
home, wear thick boots, and make provision for 
looping-up her skirts. Many an English maiden 
would then enjoy a visit to Ingleborough Cave. 

The beck flows out from under the cliff a few* yards 
above the entrance through a broad, low vault. I 
crept in for some distance, and it seemed to me that 
access to the cave might be gained by wading up the 
stream. Then, as we went down the hill, the old 
soldier thought that as there were but two of us, we 
might venture to walk through the grounds, where we 
saw the lake, the bridge, and the cascade, on our way 
to the village. 

Delicious trout from the neighbouring brook, and 
most excellent beer, awaited me for supper, and made 
me well content with the Bull and Cave. Afterwards 
I joined the party in the little bar-parlour, where, 
among a variety of topics, the mountain was talked 
about. The landlord, a hale old fellow of sixty, said 
that he had never once been on the summit, though he 
had lived all his life at the base. A rustic, though a 
two years' resident in Clapham, had not been up, and 
for a reason : " You see/' he said, " if a man gets on a 
high place, he isn't satisfied then; he wants to get 
higher. So I thinks best to content myself down 
here." 

Then spoke another of the party, a man well dressed, 
in praise of rural quiet, and the enjoyment of fresh air, 



270 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

contrasting the tranquillity of Clapham at that hour 
with the noise and confusion at Bradford, where the 
streets would be thronged till after midnight. He 
was an u operative" from Bradford, come as was his 
wont to spend Sunday in the country. He grew 
eloquent on the subject of masters and men, averring 
that masters, as a body, would never do anything for 
4he benefit of workmen unless compelled thereto by 
act of. Parliament. Well might he say so. Would 
the mills be ventilated; would dangerous machinery 
be boxed off; would schools have been interposed 
between children and slavery, had Parliament not in- 
terfered? The number of Yorkshire factory children 
at school on the last day of October, 1857, was 18,000, 
from eight to thirteen years of age. On this latter 
particular our spinner could not say enough in praise 
of the House of Commons : there was a chance for the 
bairns now that the law punished the masters who did 
not allow time for school as well as for work. " It's one 
of the grandest things," he said, " Parliament ever did 
for the factory hands." 

He had too much reason to speak as he did ; but we 
must not suppose that the great millowners are worse 
than other masters. Owing to the large numbers they 
employ, the evils complained of appear in a violent and 
concentrated form ; but we have only to look at the 
way in which apprentices and domestic servants are 
treated everywhere, especially in large towns (with 
comparatively few exceptions), to become aware that a 
want of fair play is by far too prevalent. No wonder 
that Dr. Livingstone finds reason to say we are not 
model Christians. 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 271 



CHAPTER XXII. 

By Rail to Skipton — A Stony Town — Church and Castle — The Cliffords 
— Wharfedale — Bolton Abbey — Picturesque Ruins — A Foot-Bath — 
Scraps from "Wordsworth — Bolton Park — The Strid — Barden Tower 
— The Wharfe— The Shepherd Lord — Reading to Grandfather — A 
Cup of Tea — Cheerful Hospitality — Trout Fishing— Gale Beck — 
Symon Seat — A Real Entertainer— Burnsall — A Drink of Porter — 
Immoralities — Threshfield — Kilnsey — The Crag — Kettlewell — A 
Primitive Village — Great Whernside — Starbottom— Buckden — Last 
View of Wharfedale — Cray — Bishopdale — A Pleasant Lane — Bolton 
Castle — Penhill — Aysgarth — Dead Pastimes — Decrease of Quakers 
— Failure of a Mission — "Why and Wherefore— Aysgarth Force — 
Drunken Barnaby — Inroad of Fashion. 

The railway station at Clapham, as well as others 
along the line, is built in the old timbered style, and 
harmonizes well with the landscape. A railway hotel 
stands close by, invitingly open to guests who dislike 
the walk of a mile to the village; and the landlord, as 
I was told, multiplies his profits by renting the Cave. 

A short flight by the first train took me to breakfast 
at Skipton, all through the pretty country of Craven, 
of which the town is the capital. The houses are 
built of stone taken from the neighbouring hills. The 
bells were just beginning their chimes as I passed the 
church, and, seeing the door open, I went in and 
looked at the stained glass and old monuments, the 
shields and sculptures which commemorate the Cliffords 
— Lords of the Honour of Skipton — the Lady Ellinor, 



272 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

of the house of Brandon; the Earls of Cumberland, 
one of whom was Queen Elizabeth's champion against 
the Spaniard, as well as in tilt and tournament. 

The castle, which has played a conspicuous part in 
history, stands beside the church, and there, over the 
gateway, you may still see the shield bearing two 
griffins, and the motto iSeSOrmatS. Within, you 
view the massive, low round towers from a plea- 
sant garden, where but few signs of antiquity are 
to be seen ; for modern restorations have masked 
the old grim features. Here dwelt the Cliffords, a 
proud and mighty family, who made a noise in the 
world in their day. Among them was Lord John, or 
Black Clifford, who did butcher-work at the battle of 
Wakefield, and was repaid the year after at Towton. 
In the first year of Edward IV. the estates were 
forfeited because of high treason, and Henry, the tenth 
Lord of the Honour of Skipton, to escape the ill conse- 
quences of his father's disloyalty, was concealed for 
twenty-five years among the shepherds of Cumberland. 
Another of the line was that imperial-minded Countess, 
the Lady Anne Clifford, who, when she repaired her 
castle of Skipton, made it known by an inscription in 
the same terms as that set up on her castle at Brough, 
and with the same passage of Scripture. Now it is a 
private residence ; and the ancient tapestries and pic- 
tures, and other curiosities which are still preserved, 
can only be seen after due pains taken by the inquiring 
visitor. 

The life of the Shepherd Lord, as he was called, is 
a touching episode in the history of the Cliffords; 
heightened by the marked contrast between the father 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 273 

and son — the one warlike and revengeful, the other 
gentle and forgiving. We shall come again on the 
traces of the pastoral chief ere the day be over. 

There is a long stretch of the old castle wall on the 
left as you go up the road towards Knaresborough. 
From the top of the hill, looking back about a mile 
and a half distant, you get a pleasing view of Skipton, 
lying in its cheerful j^reen valley; and presently, in 
the other direction, you see the hills of Wharfedale. 
Everywhere the grass is waving, or, newly-mown, fills 
all the air with delightful odour. I walked slowly, for 
the day was hot — one of the hottest of that fervid July 
i — and took till noon to accomplish the seven miles to 
Bolton Abbey. The number of vehicles drawn up at 
the Devonshire Arms — a good inn about two furlongs 
from the ruin — and the numerous visitors, betokened 
something unusually attractive. 

Since Landseer painted his picture, Bolton Abbey 
has become a household word. It seems familiar to us 
beforehand. We picture it to our minds; and your 
imagination must be extravagant indeed if the picture 
be not realized. It is a charming scene that opens as 
you turn out of the road and descend the grassy slope: 
the abbey standing, proud and beautiful in decay, in a 
green meadow, where stately trees adorn the gentle un- 
dulations ; the Wharfe rippling cheerfully past, coming 
forth from wooded hills above, going away between 
wooded hills below, alike 

" With mazy error under pendant shades ;" 

the bold perpendicular cliff opposite, all purple and 
gray, crowned and flanked with hanging wood; the 

T 



274 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

cascade rushing down in a narrow line of foam ; the 
big mossy stones that line the bank, and the stony 
islets in the bed of the stream; and, looking up the 
dale, the great sweeps of wood in Bolton Park, termi- 
nated by the wild heights of Symon Seat and Barden 
Fell. All around you see encircling woods, and com- 
binations of rock, and wood, and water, that inspire 
delightful emotions. 

But you will turn again and again to the abbey to 
gaze on its tall arches, the great empty window, the 
crumbling walls, over which hang rich masses of ivy, 
and walking slowly round you will discover the points 
whence the ruins appear most picturesque. And within, 
where elder-trees grow, and the carved tombstones of 
the old abbots lie on the turf, you may still see where 
the monks sat in the sanctuary, and where they poured 
the holy water. And whether from within or without, 
you will survey with reverent admiration. A part of 
the nave is used as a church for the neighbourhood, 
and ere I left the country folk came from all the paths 
around, summoned by the pealing bell. I looked in 
and saw richly stained windows and old tombs. 

On the rise above the abbey stands a castellated 
lodge, embodying the ancient gatehouse, an occasional 
resort of the late Duke of Devonshire, to whom the 
estate belonged. Of all his possessions this perhaps 
offered him most of beauty and tranquillity. 

You may ramble at will ; cross the long row of 
stepping-stones to the opposite bank, and scramble 
through the wood to the top of the cliff; or roam 
over the meadows up and down the river, or lounge 
in idle enjoyment on the seats fixed under some of the 
trees. After strolling hither and thither, I concealed 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 275 

myself under the branches overhanging the stream, 
and sat there as in a bower, with my feet in the 
shallow water, the lively flashing current broad before 
me, and read, 

" From Bolton's old monastic tower 
The bells ring lond with gladsome power ; 
The sun shines bright ; the fields are gay 
With people in their best array 
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf, 
Along the banks of crystal Wharf, 
Through the Vale retired and lowly, 
Trooping to that summons holy. 
And, up among the moorlands, see 
What sprinklings of blithe company !" 

And while I read, the bell was ringing, and the 
people were gathering together, and anon the priest 

" all tranquilly 
Recites the holy liturgy," 

but no White Doe of Rylstone came gliding down 
to pace timidly among the tombs, and make her couch 
on a solitary grave. 

And reading there on the scene itself, I found a 
new charm in the pages — a vivid life' in the old events 
and old names : 

" Pass, pass who will, yon chantry door ; 
And through the chink in the fractured floor 
Look down, and see a grisly sight ; 
A vault where the bodies are buried upright ! 
There, face by face, and hand by hand, 
The Claphams and Mauleverers stand ; 
And, in his place, among son and sire, 
Is John de Clapham, that fierce Esquire, 
A valiant man, and a name of dread 
In the ruthless wars of the White and Red ; 
Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church, 
And smote off his head on the stones of the porch ! 
Look down among them, if you dare ; 
Oft does the White Doe loiter there." 

And here, as at Skipton, we are reminded of the 
t2 



276 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Cliffords, and of the Shepherd Lord, to whom ap- 
peared at times the gracious fairy, 

" And taught him signs, and showed hirn sights, 
In Craven's dens, on Cumbrian heights ; 
When under a cloud of fear he lay, 
A shepherd clad in homely gray." 

I left my mossy seat and returned to the bank, 
thoroughly cooled, on coming to the end of the poem, 
and started for a travel up the dale. The road skirts 
the edge of Bolton Park ; but the pleasantest way is 
through the park itself, for there you have grand 
wooded slopes on each side, and there the river rush- 
ing along its limestone bed encounters the far-famed 
Stiid. A rustic, however, told me that no one was 
allowed to cross the park on Sunday; but having come 
to see a sight, I did not like to be disappointed, and 
thought it best to test the question for myself. I kept 
on, therefore, passing from the open grounds to de- 
lightful paths under the woods, bending hither and 
thither, and with many a rise and fall among rocks 
and trees. Presently, guided by the roar, I struck 
through the wood for the stony margin of the river. 
Here all is rock : great hummocks, ledges and tables 
of rock, wherein are deep basins, gullies, bays, and 
shallow pools ; and the water makes a loud noise as it 
struggles past. Here and there a rugged cliff appears, 
its base buried in underwood, its front hung with ivy ; 
and there are marks on the trees, and portentous 
signs on the drifted boulders, which reveal the swollen 
height of floods. There are times when all these 
Yorkshire rivers become impetuous torrents, roaring 
along in resistless might and majesty. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 277 

A little farther and the rocks form a dam, leaving 
but a narrow opening in the centre, across which a 
man may stride, for the passage of the stream — and we 
behold the Strid. Piling itself up against the barrier, 
the water rushes through, deep, swift, and ungovern- 
able, and boils and eddies below with never-ceasing 
tumult. The rock on each side of the sluice is worn 
smooth by the feet of many who have stridden across, 
caring nothing for the tales that are told of terrible 
accidents from a slip of the foot or from giddiness. 
Once a young lady, fascinated by the rapid current, 
fell in and was drowned in sight of her friends. 
And 



mounting high 



To days of dim antiquity ; 

When Lady Aaliza mourned 

Her son, and felt in her despair 

The pang of unavailing prayer; 

Her son in Wharfe's abysses drowned, 

The noble Boy of Egx-emound. 

From which affliction — when the grace 

Of God had in her heart found place — 

A pious structure, fair to see, 

Rose up, the stately Priory !" 

For about a mile upwards the river-bed is still 
rocky, and you see many a pretty effect of rushing 
water, and perhaps half a dozen strids, but not one 
with only a single sluice, as the first. No one stopped 
or turned me back ; no peremptory shout threatened me 
from afar; and truly the river is so shut in by woods, 
that intruders could only be seen by an eye somewhere 
on its brink. Not a soul did I meet, except three 
countrymen, who, when I came suddenly upon them 
on doubling a crag, seemed ready to take to flight, for 
instead of coming the beaten way to view the romantic, 



278 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

they had got over the fence and scrambled down 
through the wood. They soon perceived that I was 
very harmless. 

A little farther and we leave the rocks; the woods 
recede and give place to broad grassy slopes ; high 
up on the right stands the keeper's house ; higher on 
the left the old square block of Barden Tower peeps 
above the trees; before us a bridge spans the river, 
and there we pass into the road which leads through 
the village of Barden to Pateley Bridge and Nidder- 
dale. 

The Wharfe has its source in the bleak moorlands 
which we saw flanking Cam Fell during our descent 
from Counterside a few days ago. Rocks and cliffs 
of various formations beset all its upper course, im- 
parting a different character to the dale every few 
leagues — savage, romantic, picturesque, and beautiful. 
No more beautiful scenery is to be found along the 
river than for some miles above and below Bolton 
Abbey. Five miles farther down, the stream flows 
past those two delightful inland watering-places, Ilkley 
and Ben Rhydding, and onwards between thick woods 
and broad meadows to Wetherby, below which it is 
again narrowed by cliffs, until leaving Tadcaster, rich 
in memories of Rome, it enters the Ouse between 
Selby and York. 

The sight of Barden Tower reminds us once more 
of the Shepherd Lord, for there he oft did sojourn, 
enjoying rural scenes and philosophical studies, even 
after his restoration to rank and estate in his thirty- 
second year. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 279 

" I wish I could have heard thy long-tried lore, 

Thou virtuous Lord of Skipton ! Thou couldst "well 
From sage Experience, that best teacher, tell 
How far within the Shepherd's humble door 

Lives the sure happiness, that on the floor 
Of gay Baronial Halls disdains to dwell, 
Though decked with many a feast, and many a spell 
Of gorgeous rhyme, and echoing with the roar 

Of Pleasure, clamorous round the full-crowned bowl ! 
Thou hadst (and who had doubted thee?) exprest 
What empty baubles are the ermined stole, 

Proud coronet, rich walls with tapestry drest, 
And music lulling the sick frame to rest ! 
Bliss only haunts the pure contented soul !" 

But the blood of his ancestors flowed in his veins, 
and on the royal summons to arm and array for Flod- 
den, he, at the age of sixty, led his retainers to the 
field: 

" From Penigent to Pendle Hill, 
From Linton to Long Addingham, 
And all that Craven coasts did till, 
They with the lusty Clifford came." 

I crossed the bridge and went up the hill for a view 
of the ruin. At the top, a broken slope, sprinkled 
with trees, serves as village green to the few houses 
which constitute the place known as Bar den Tower. 
Near one of these houses I saw a pretty sight — a youth 
sitting on a bench under a shady tree reading to his 
old grandfather from one of those venerable folios 
written by divines whose head and heart were alike 
full of their subject — the ways of God towards man, 
and man's duty. Wishing to make an inquiry con- 
cerning the road, I apologized for my interruption, 
when both graybeard and lad made room for me be- 
tween them on the bench, and proffered all they knew 
of information. But it soon appeared that the par- 
ticulars I wanted could only be furnished by " uncle, 



280 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

who was up-stairs a-cleaning himself;" so to improve 
the time until he was ready I passed round the end of 
the house to the Tower in the rear. The old gateway- 
remains, and some of the ancient timbers; but the 
upper chambers are now used as lofts for firewood, 
and the ground-floor is a cow-stall. The external walls 
are comparatively but little decayed, and appear in 
places as strong as when they sheltered the Cliffords. 

Uncle was there when I returned to the front. He 
knew the country well, for in his vocation as a butcher 
he travelled it every week, and enabled me to decide 
between Kettlewell and Pateley Bridge for my coming 
route. And more, he said he would like to walk a mile 
or two with me ; he would put on his coat, and soon 
overtake me. I walked slowly on, and was out of 
sight of the house, when he came running after me, 
and cried, " Hey ! come back. A cup o' tea '11 do 
neither of us any harm, so come back and have a cup 
afore we start." 

I went back, for such hospitality as that was not to 
be slighted ; and while we sipped he talked about the 
pretty scenery; about the trout in the river; about the 
rooms which he had to let, and the lodgers he had 
entertained. Sometimes there came a young couple 
full of poetry and sentiment, too much so, indeed, to 
be merry; sometimes a student, who liked to prowl 
about the ruin, explore all its secrets, and wander out 
to where 

" High on a point of rugged ground, 
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell, 
Above the loftiest ridge or mound 
Where foresters or shepherds dwell, 
An edifice of warlike frame 
Stands single— Norton tower its name — 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 281 

It fronts all quarters, and looks round 
O'er path and road, and plain and dell, 
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream, 
Upon a prospect without bound." 

And he talked, too, about the trout in the river, and 
the anglers who came to catch them. But the fishing 
is not unrestricted; leave must be obtained, and a fee 
paid. Any one in search of trout or the picturesque, 
who can content himself with rustic quarters, would 
find in Mr. Williamson of Barden Tower a willing ad- 
viser. 

Presently we took the road, which, with the river on 
the right, runs along the hill-side, sheltered by woods, 
high above the stream. A few minutes brought us to 
a gate, where we got over, and went a little way down 
the slope to look at Gale beck, a pretty cascade 
tumbling into a little dell, delightfully cool, and green 
with trees, ferns, and mosses. My companion showed 
that he used his eyes while driving about in his cart, 
and picked out all the choice bits of the scenery ; and 
these he now pointed out to me with all the pride of 
one who had a personal interest in their reputation. 
Ere long we emerged from the trees, and could over- 
look all the pleasing features of the dale ; fields and 
meadows on each side of the stream, bounded by steep 
hills, and crags peeping out from the great dark slopes 
of firs. The rocky summit of Symon Seat appeared 
above a brow on the left bank, coming more and more 
into view as we advanced, till the great hill itself was 
unveiled. From those rocks, on a clear day, you can 
see Rosebury Topping, and the towers of York and 
Eipon. 

For four miles did my entertainer accompany me, 



282 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

which, considering the fierce heat of the evening, I 
could only regard as an honest manifestation of friend- 
liness — to me very gratifying. We parted in sight of 
Burnsall, a village situate on the fork of the river, 
where the Littondale branch joins that of Wharfedale 
proper. 

A man who sat reading at his door near the farther 
end of the village looked up as I passed, and asked, 
"Will ye have a drink o' porter?" Hot weather jus- 
tified acceptance ; he invited me to sit while he went 
to the barrel, and when he came forth with the foam- 
ing jug, he, too, must have a talk. But his talk 
was not what I expected — the simple words of a 
simple-minded rustic; he craved to know something, 
and more than was good, concerning a certain class of 
publications sold in Holy well-street : things long ago 
condemned by the moral law, and now very properly 
brought under the lash of the legal law by Lord Camp- 
bell. Having no mission to be a scavenger, I advised 
him not to meddle with pitch ; but he already knew 
too much, and he mentioned things which help to 
explain the great demand for the immoral books out 
of the metropolis. One was, that in a small northern, 
innocent-looking country town, Adam and Eve balls 
regularly take place, open to all comers who can pay 
for admission. 

From Burnsall onwards we have again the grass 
country, the landscape loses the softened character of 
that in our rear ; we follow a bad cross-road for some 
miles, passing wide apart a solitary farm or cottage, 
and come into a high road a little to the right of 
Threshneld. Here and there a group of labourers are 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 283 

lounging on a grassy bank, smoking, talking quietly, 
and enjoying the sunset coolness ; and I had more 
than one invitation to tarry and take a friendly pipe. 

Louder sounds the noise of the river as the evening 
lengthens; the dark patches of firs on the hill-sides 
grow darker ; the rocks and cliffs look strange and 
uncertain ; the road approaches a foaming rapid, where 
another strid makes the water roar impatiently; and 
so I completed the ten miles from Barden Tower, and 
came in deep twilight to the Angler's Inn at Kilnsey 
as the good folk were preparing for bed. 

As its name denotes, the house is frequented by 
anglers, who, after paying a fee of half-a-crown a day, 
find exercise for their skill in the rippling shallows and 
silent pools of the river which flows past not many 
yards from the road. I am told that the sport is but 
indifferent. 

A short distance beyond the inn there rises sheer 
from the road a grand limestone cliff, before which 
you will be tempted to pause. A low grassy slope, 
bordered by a narrow brook, forms a natural plinthe ; 
small trees and ivy grow from the fissures high over- 
head, and large trees and bush on the ledges; the 
colony of swallows that inhabit the holes flit swiftly 
about the crest, and what with the contrast of verdure 
and rock, and the magnitude of the cliffj your eye is 
alike impressed and gratified. By taking a little 
trouble you may get to the top, and while looking on 
the scene beneath, let your thoughts run back to the 
time when Wharfedale was a loch, such as Loch Long 
or Loch Fyne, into which the tides of the sea flowed 
twice a day, beating against the base of the Kilnsey 



284 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Crag, where now sheep graze, and men pass to and fro 
on business or pleasure. 

To take my start the next morning from so lofty a 
headland; to feel new life thrill through every limb 
from the early sun; to drink of the spring which the 
cliff overshadows where it gushes forth among mossy 
stones at the root of an ash; to inhale the glorious 
breeze that tempered the heat, was a delightful begin- 
ning of a day's walk. Soon we cross to the left bank 
of Wharfe, and follow the road between the river and 
a cliffy range of rocks to Kettle well, enjoying pleasing 
views all the way. And the village itself seems a 
picture of an earlier age — a street of little stone cot- 
tages, backed by gardens and orchards ; here and there 
a queer little shop; the shoemaker sitting with doors 
and windows open looking out on his flowers every 
time he lifts his eyes; the smith, who has opened all 
his shutters to admit the breeze, hammering leisurely, 
as if half inclined for a holiday with such a wealth of 
sunshine pouring down ; and Nancy Hardaker, Grocer 
and Draper, and dealer in everything besides, busying 
herself behind her little panes with little preparations 
for customers. It is a simple picture : one that makes 
you believe the honest outward aspect is only the ex- 
pression of honesty within. 

For one who had time to explore the neighbour- 
hood, Kettlewell would be good head-quarters. It has 
two inns, and a shabby tenement inscribed Temperance 
Hotel. Hence you may penetrate to the wild fells at 
the head of the dale; or climb to the top of Great 
Whernside; or ramble over the shoulder of the great 
mountain into Coverdale, discovering many a rocky 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 285 

nook, and many a little cascade and flashing rill. 
Great Whernside, 2263 feet high, commands views 
into many dales, and affords you a glimpse of far-off 
hills which we have already climbed. The Great one 
has a brother named Little Whernside, because he is 
not so high by nearly three hundred feet. The " lime- 
stone pass" between Great Whernside and Buckden 
Pike is described as a grand bit of mountain scenery. 

From Kettlewell the road still ascends the dale, in 
sight of the river which now narrows to the dimen- 
sions of a brook. Crags and cliffs still break out of the 
hill-slopes, and more than any other that we have 
visited you see that Wharfedale is characterized by 
scars and cliffs. The changing aspect of the scenery is 
manifest ; the grass is less luxuriant than lower down, 
and but few of the fields are mown. Starbottom, a 
little place of rude stone houses, with porches that re- 
semble an outer stair, reminds us once more of a 
mountain village ; but it has trim flower-gardens, and 
fruit-trees, and a fringe of sycamores. 

I came to Buckden, the next village, just in time to 
dine with the haymakers. Right good fare was pro- 
vided^ — roast mutton, salad, and rice pudding. Who 
would not be a haymaker! Beyond the village the 
road turns away from the river, and mounts a steep hill, 
where, from the top of the bend, we get our last look 
down Wharfedale, upwards along Langstrothdale, and 
across the elevated moorlands which enclose Penyghent. 
Everywhere the gray masses of stone encroach on the 
waving grass. Still the road mounts, and steeply; on 
the left, in a field, are a few small enclosures, all stand- 
ing, which, perhaps, represent the British dwellings at 



286 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

the foot of Addleborough. Still up, through the 
hamlet of Cray, with rills, rocks, and waterfalls on the 
right and left, and then the crown of the pass, and a 
wide ridgy hollow, flanked by cliffs, the outliers of 
Buckden Pike, which rears itself aloft on the right. 
Then two or three miles of this "breezy expanse, be- 
tween Stake Fell on one side and Wasset Fell on the 
other, and we come to the top of Kidstone bank, and 
suddenly Bishopdale opens before us, a lovely sylvan 
landscape melting away into Wensleydale. It will 
tempt you to lie down for half an hour on the soft turf 
and enjoy the prospect at leisure. 

The descent is alike rough and steep, bringing you 
rapidly down to the first farm. A cliff on the right 
gradually merges into the rounded swell of a green 
hill; we come to a plantation where, in the open 
places by the beck, grow wild strawberries; then to 
trees on one side — ash, holly, beech, and larch, the 
stems embraced by ivy, and thorns and wild roses be- 
tween ; then trees on both sides, and the narrow track 
is beautiful as a Berkshire lane — and that is saying a 
great deal — and the brook which accompanies it makes 
a cheerful sound as if gladdened by the quivering sun- 
beams that fall upon it. Everywhere the haymakers 
are at work, and with merry hearts, for the wind blows 
lustily and makes the whole dale vocal. 

By-and-by the lane sends off branches, all alike 
pretty, one of which brings us down into the lowest 
meadows, and on the descent we get glimpses of Bolton 
Castle, and on the right appears Penhill, shouldering 
forward like a great promontory. A relic of antiquity 
may yet be seen on its slopes — obscure remains of a 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 287 

Preceptory of the Knights Templars. The watcher 
on Penhill was one of those who helped to spread the 
alarm of invasion in the days of Napoleon the Great, 
for he mistook a fire on the eastern hills for the beacon 
on Rosebury Topping, and so set his own a-blaze. 
We come to Thoralby, a village of comfortable signs 
within, and pleasant prospects without ; and now 
Wensleydale opens, and another half-hour brings us to 
Aysgarth, a large village four miles below Bainbridge. 

A tall maypole stands on the green, the only one I 
remember to have seen in Yorkshire. It is a memorial 
of the sports and pastimes for which Wensleydale was 
famous. The annual feasts and fairs would attract 
visitors from twenty miles around. Here, at Aysgarth, 
not the least popular part of the amusements were the 
races, run by men stark naked, as people not more than 
forty years old can well remember. But times are 
changed; and throughout the dale drunkenness and 
revelry are giving way to teetotalism, lectures, tea- 
gatherings, and other moral recreations. And the 
change is noticeable in another particular : the Quakers, 
who were once numerous in the dale, have disappeared 
too. 

Some two or three years ago a notion prevailed 
in a certain quarter that the time was ripe for 
making proselytes, and establishing a meeting once 
more at Aysgarth. The old meeting-house, the 
school -room, and dwelling-house, remained ; why 
should they not be restored to their original uses? 
Was it not "about Wensleydale" that George Fox 
saw u a great people in white raiment by a river-side?" 
Did he not, while on his journey up the dale, go into 



288 A MONTH IN YORKSHIPwE. 

the "steeple-house" and "largely and freely declare 
the word of life, and have not much persecution," and 
afterwards was locked into a parlour as " a young man 
that was mad, and had run away from his relations?" 
From certain indications it seemed that a successful 
effort might be made; an earnest and active member 
of the society volunteered to remove with his family 
from London into Yorkshire to carry out the experi- 
ment ; and soon the buildings were repaired, the 
garden was cultivated anew, the doors of the meeting- 
house were opened; the apostle went about and talked 
to the people, and gave away tracts freely. The people 
listened to him, and read his tracts, and were well con- 
tent to have him among them; but the experiment 
failed — not one became a Quaker. 

At the beginning of the present year an essay was 
advertised for, on the causes of the decline of Quaker- 
ism, simultaneously with a great increase in the popu- 
lation at large. It appears to me that the causes are 
not far to seek. One of them I have already men- 
tioned : others consist in what Friends call a " guarded 
education," which seeks rather to ignore vice than to 
implant abhorrence of it; in training children by a false 
standard: "Do this; don't do that;" not because it 
is right or wrong, but because such is or is not the 
practice of Friends, so that when the children grow old 
enough to see what a very foolish Mrs. Grundy they 
have had set before them as a model, they naturally 
suspect imposition, become restive, and kick over the 
traces. Moreover, to set up fidgetty crotchets as prin- 
ciples of truth, whereby the sense of the ludicrous is 
excited in others, and not reverence, is not the way to 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 289 

increase and multiply. Many Quakers now living 
will remember trie earnest controversy that once stirred 
them as to whether it might be proper to use umbrellas, 
and to wear hats with a binding round the edge of the 
brim; and the anxious breeches question, of which a 
ministress said in her sermon, that it was " matter of 
concern to see so many of the young men running 
down into longs, yet the Lord be thanked, there was a 
precious remnant left in shorts," And again, silent 
worship tends to diminish numbers, as also the exceed- 
ing weakness — with rare exceptions — of the words 
that occasionally break the silence ; and the absence of 
an external motive to fix the attention encourages 
roving thoughts. Hence Darlington railway-shares, 
and the shop-shelves, and plans for arbours and garden- 
plots, employ the minds of many who might have 
other thoughts did they hear — " Be not deceived, God 
is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that 
shall he also reap." 

There is my essay. It is a short one, freely given ; 
for I must confess to a certain liking for the Quakers, 
after all. Their charities are noble and generous; 
their views on many points eminently liberal and en- 
lightened; and though themselves enslaved to crotchets, 
they have shown bravely and practically that they abhor 
slavery; and their recent mission to Finland demon- 
strates the bounty and tenderness with which they 
seek to mitigate the evils of war. There is in Oxford- 
shire a little Quaker burial-ground, on the brow of a 
hill looking far away into the west country, where I 
have asked leave to have my grave dug, when the 

u 



290 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

time comes: that is, if the sedate folk will admit 
among them even a dead Philistine. 

I saw the Quaker above-mentioned standing at his 
door: we were total strangers to each other, but my 
Bainbridge friend had told him there was a chance 
of my visiting Aysgarth, and he held out his hand. 
Soon tea was made ready, and after that he called his 
son, and led me across the hill-slopes to get the best 
views, and by short cuts down to Aysgarth Force, 
a mile below the village, where the Ure rushes down 
three great breaks or steps in the limestone which 
stretch all across the river. The water is shallow, and 
falling as a white curtain over the front of each step, 
shoots swiftly over the broad level to the next plunge, 
and the next, producing, even in dry weather, a very 
pleasing effect. But during a flood the steps disap- 
pear, and the whole channel is filled by one great 
rapid, almost terrific in its vehemence. The stony 
margin of the stream is fretted and worn into many 
curious forms, and for a mile or more above and below 
the bed is stone, nothing but stone, while on each side 
the steep banks are patched and clothed with trees and 
bush. The broken ground above the Force, inter- 
spersed with bush, is a favourite resort of picnic 
parties, and had been thronged a few days before by a 
multitude of festive teetotallers. 

The bridge which crosses the river between the 
Force and the village, with its arch of seventy-one feet 
span springing from two natural piers of limestone, is 
a remarkably fine object when viewed from below. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 291 

Above, the river flows noisily from ledge to ledge 
down a winding gorge. 

Drunken Barnaby, who, by the way, was a York- 
shireman, named Richard Braithwaite, came to Wens- 
ley dale in one of his itineraries. " Thence," says the 
merry fellow — 

" Thence to Wenchly, valley-seated, 
For antiquity repeated ; 
Sheep and sheep-herd, as one brother, 
Kindly drink to one another; 
Till pot-hardy, light as feather, 
Sheep and sheep-herd sleep together. 



" Thence to Ayscarthe from a mountaine, 
Fruitfull valleys, pleasant fountaine, 
Woolly flocks, cliffs steep and snewy, 
Fields, fens, sedgy rushes, saw I ; 
Which high mount is called the Temple, 
For all prospects an example." 

The church stands in a commanding position, 
whence there is a good prospect down the dale. 
Besides the landscape, there are times when you may 
see what daring innovations fashion makes on the 
old habits. Wait in the churchyard on Sunday when 
service ends, and you will see many a gay skirt, hung 
with flounces and outspread by crinoline, come flaunt- 
ing forth from the church. And in this remote vil- 
lage, Miss Metcalfe and Miss Thistle thwaite must do 
the bidding of coquettish Parisian milliners, even as 
their sisters do in May Fair. 



u2 



292 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A Walk — Carperby — Despotic Hay-time — Bolton Castle — The Village 
— Queen Mary's Prison — Redmire— Scarthe Nick — Pleasing Land- 
scape — Halfpenny House — Hart Leap Well — View into Swaledale — 
Richmond — The Castle — Historic Names — The Keep— St. Martin's 
Cell — Easby Abbey — Beautiful Ruins — King Arthur and Sleeping 
Warriors — Ripon— View from the Minster Tower — Archbishop Wil- 
frid—The Crypt — The Nightly Horn— To Studley— Surprising Trick 
— Robin Hood's Well — Fountains Abbey— Pop goes the Weasel — 
The Ruins— Robin Hood and the Curtail Eriar— To Thirsk— The 
Ancient Elm — Epitaphs. 

My friend had for some time wished to look into 
Swaledale; he therefore accompanied me the next 
morning, as far as the route served, through the vil- 
lage of Carperby, where dwells a Quaker who has the 
best grazing farm in the North Riding. We passed 
without calling, for he must be a philosopher indeed, 
here in the dales, who can endure interruptions in hay- 
time, when all who can work are busy in the fields. 
Ask no man to lend you a horse or labourer in hay- 
time. Servants give themselves leave in hay-time, 
and go toiling in the sunshine till all the crop is led, 
earning as much out of doors in three or four weeks 
as in six months in-doors. What is it to them that 
the mistress has to buckle-to, and be her own servant 
for a while, and see to the washing, and make the 
bread? as I saw in my friend's house, knowing that 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 293 

in case of failure the nearest place where a joint of 
meat or a loaf of bread can be got is at Hawes, eight 
miles distant. What is it to them ? the hay must be 
made, whether or not. 

A few light showers fell, refreshing the thirsty soil, 
and making the trees and hedgerows rejoice in a 
livelier green. It was as if Summer were overjoyed: 

" Even when she weeps, as oft she will, though surely not for grief, 
Her tears are turned to diamond drops on every shining leaf." 

So our walk of four miles to Bolton Castle was the 
more agreeable. The old square building, with its 
four square towers rising above a mass of wood, looks 
well as you approach from the road; and when you 
come upon the eminence on which it stands, and see 
the little village of Bolton, little thatched cottages 
bordering the green, as old in appearance as the castle, 
it is as if you looked on a scene from the feudal ages — 
the rude dwellings of the serfs pitched for safety be- 
neath the walls, as in the days of Richard Lord Scrope, 
who built the castle four hundred years ago. A con- 
siderable portion of the edifice is still habitable ; some 
of the rooms look really comfortable ; others are let as 
workshops to a tinker and glazier, and down in the 
vaults you see the apparatus for casting sheet-lead. 
We saw the room in which the hapless Mary was con- 
fined, and the window by which, as is said, she tried, 
but failed, to escape. We went to the top, and looked 
over into the inner court ; and got a bird's-eye view 
of the village and of Bolton Park and Hall, amid the 
wooded landscape; and then to the bottom, down 
damp stone stairs, to what seemed the lowest vault, 
where, however, there was a lower depth — the dun- 



294 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

geon — into which we descended by a ladder. What 
a dismal abode ! of gloom too dense for one feeble 
candle to enliven. The man who showed the way 
said there was a well in one corner; but I saw nothing 
except that that spot looked blacker than the rest. To 
think that such a prison should have been built in the 
"good old times!" 

On leaving the village, an old woman gave me a 
touch of the broadest dialect I had yet heard : " Eh ! 
is ye boun into Swawldawl ?" she exclaimed, in reply 
to my inquiry. We were going into Swaledale, and, 
taking a byeway above the village of Redmire, soon 
came to a road leading up the dale to Reeth, into 
which my friend turned, while I went on to the 
northern slope of Wensleydale. You ascend by a 
steep, winding road to Scarthe Nick, the pass on the 
summit, and there you have a glorious prospect — many 
a league of hill and hollow, of moor and meadow. 
From Bolton Castle and its little dependency, which 
lie well under the eye, you can look down the dale 
and catch sight of the ruined towers of Middleham; 
Aysgarth Force reveals itself by a momentary quiver- 
ing flash; and scattered around, seven churches and 
eight villages, more or less environed by woods, com- 
plete the landscape. The scene, with its wealth of 
quiet beauty, is one suggestive of peace and well- 
being, dear to the Englishman's heart. To one coming 
suddenly upon it from the dreary moorlands, which lie 
between Wensleydale and Richmond, there would be 
something of enchantment in the far-spreading view. 

I turned my back on it at last, and followed the 
road across the moors, where the memory of what you 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 295 

have just left becomes fairer by contrast. The route is 
solitary, and apparently but little frequented, for in ten 
miles I met only a man and a boy; and the monotony 
is only relieved after a while by the falling away of the 
brown slopes on the right, opening a view of the 
Hambleton Hills. There is one public-house on the 
way, the Halfpenny House, down in a hollow, by no 
means an agreeable resting-place, especially for a 
hungry man with a liking for cleanliness. Not far 
from it is Hart Leap Well, sung by Wordsworth : 

" There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep, 
Will wet his lips within that cup of stone ; 
And oftentimes when all are fast asleep, 
This water doth send forth a dolorous groan." 

By-and-by, perhaps, ere you have done thinking of 
the poem, you come to the brow of a long declivity,. 
the end of the moors, and are rewarded by a view 
which rivals that seen from Scarthe Nicke. Swaledale 
opens before you, overspread with waving fields of 
grain, with numerous farmsteads scattered up and 
down, with a long range of cliff breaking the opposite 
slope, and, about four miles distant, Richmond on its 
lofty seat, crowned by the square castle-keep, tall and 
massive. I saw it lit by the afternoon sun, and needed 
no better invitation for a half-hour's halt on the hea- 
thery bank. 

You descend to the wheat-fields, and see no more of 
the town until close upon it. Swale, as you will notice 
while crossing the bridge, still shows the characteristics 
of a mountain stream, though broader and deeper than 
at Thwaite, where we last parted company with it. 
Very steep is the grass-grown street leading from the 



296 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

river up to the main part of the town, where, having 
found a comfortable public-house, I went at once to the 
castle. It occupies the summit of a bluff, which, rising 
bold and high from the Swale, commands a noble 
prospect over what Whitaker calls " the Piedmont of 
Bichmondshire." On the side towards the river, the 
walls are all broken and ruinous, with here and there 
a loophole or window opening, through which you 
may look abroad on the landscape, and ponder on the 
changes which have befallen since Alan the Red built 
a fortress here on the lands given to him in reward for 
prowess by the Conqueror. It was in 1071 that he 
began to fortify, and portions of his masonry yet 
remain, fringed with ivy and tufts of grass, and here 
and there the bugloss growing from the crevices. 
Perhaps while you saunter to and fro in the castle- 
garth the keeper will appear, and tell you — though 
not without leave — his story of the ruins. If it will 
add to your pleasure, he "will show you the spot where 
George IV. sat when Prince of Wales, and declared 
the prospect to be the finest he had ever beheld. You 
will be told which is Robin Hood's Tower, which the 
Gold Tower — so called because of a tradition that 
treasure was once discovered therein — and which is 
Scolland's Hall, where knights, and nobles, and high- 
born dames held their banquets. And here you will 
be reminded of Fitzhughs and Marmions, Randolph 
de Glanville and William the Lion, of Nevilles and 
Scropes, and of the Lennox — a natural son of Charles II. 
— to whom the dukedom of Richmond was given by 
the merry monarch, and to whose descendants it still 
belongs. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 297 

One side of the garth is enclosed "by a new building 
to be used as barracks or a military depot, and near 
this, at the angle towards the town, rises the keep. 
What a mighty tower it is ! ninety-nine feet high, the 
walls eleven feet thick, strengthened on all sides by 
straight buttresses, an impressive memorial of the 
Normans. It was built by Earl Conan, seventy-five 
years after Red Alan's bastions. The lowest chamber 
is dark and vaulted, with the rings still remaining to 
which the lamps were hung, and a floor of natural 
rock pierced by the old well. The chief entrance is 
now on the first floor, to which you mount by an outer 
stair, and the first things you see on entering are the 
arms and accoutrements of the Yorkshire militia, all 
carefully arranged. The view from the top delights 
your eye by its variety and extent — a great sweep of 
green hills and woods, the winding dale, and beyond, 
the brown heights that stretch away to the mountains. 
You see the town and all its picturesque features : the 
towers of St. Mary's and of the old Gray Friars' 
monastery, and Trinity Chapel at one side of the 
market-place, now desecrated by an intrusion of petty 
merchandise. And, following the course of the river 
downwards, you can see in the meadows among the 
woods the ruins of the Abbey of St. Agatha, at 
Easby. A few miles farther, and the stream flows 
past Catterick, the Cattaractonium of the Romans; 
and Bolton-on-Swale, the burial-place of old Jenkins. 
On leaving the castle, make your way down to the 
path which runs round the face of the precipice below 
the walls, yet high enough above the river for pleasing 
views : a good place for an evening stroll. Then de- 



298 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

scend to a lower level, and look back from the new 
bridge near the railway station; you will be charmed 
with the singularly picturesque view of the town, 
clustered all along the hill-top, and terminated by the 
imposing mass of ruins and the lordly keep. And 
there is something to be seen near at hand : the 
station, built in Gothic style, pleasantly situate among 
trees ; St. Martin's Cell, founded more than seven 
hundred years ago, now sadly dilapidated, and used as 
a cow-stall. Beyond, on the slope of the hill, stands 
the parish church, with a fine lofty tower; and near 
it are the old grammar school, famous for good scholars ; 
and the Tate Testimonial, a handsome Gothic edifice, 
with cloisters, where the boys play in rainy weather. 
It was in that churchyard that Herbert Knowles wrote 
the poem 

" Methinks it is good to be here," 

which has long kept his name in memory. 

Turn into the path on the left near the bridge, 
follow it through the wood which hangs on the slope 
above the river, then between the meadows and gar- 
dens, and past the mill, and you come to Easby 
Abbey, a charming ruin in a charming spot. You see 
a gentle eminence, rich in noble trees — the " abbot's 
elm" among them — with a mansion on the summit, and 
in the meadow at the foot the group of ruins, not so 
far from the river but that you can hear it murmur- 
ing briskly along its stony channel. They occupy a 
considerable space, and the longer you wander from 
kitchen to refectory, from oratory to chapter-house, 
under broken arches, from one weedy heap of masonry 
to another, the more will you become aware of their 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 299 

picturesque beauties. The effect is heightened by 
magnificent masses of ivy, and trees growing out from 
the gaping stones, and about the grounds, screening 
and softening the ancient walls with quivering ver- 
dure. Here, for centuries, was the burial-place of the 
Scropes, that powerful family who became possessors 
of Easby not long after the death of Roald, constable 
of Richmond, founder of the abbey in 1152. Hence 
the historical associations impart a deeper interest to 
the loveliness of nature and the beauty of architec- 
ture. 

The gate-house, also mantled with ivy, stands iso- 
lated in the meadow beyond, and Easby church be- 
tween it and the ruins. And a pretty little church it 
is — a very jewel. Ivy creeps over it, and apparently 
through it, for a thick stem grows out of the wall 
three feet from the ground. Above the porch you 
may see three carved shields, time-worn memorials of 
Conyers, Aske, and Scrope. 

To linger here while the sun went down, and the 
shadows darkened behind the walls, and the glory 
streamed through the blank windows, was a rare en- 
joyment. It was dusk when I returned to the town, 
and there I finished with another stroll on the path 
under the castle, thinking of the ancient legend, and 
wishing for a peep at the mysterious vault where King 
Arthur's warriors lie asleep. Long, long ago, a man, 
while wandering about the hill, was conducted into 
an underground vault by a mysterious personage, and 
there he saw to his amazement a great multitude lying 
in deep slumber. Ere he recovered, his guide placed 
in his hands a horn and a sword; he drew the blade 



300 A MONTH IN YORKSHIKE. 

iialf out of the sheath, when lo ! every sleeper stirred 
as if about to awake, and the poor mortal, terror- 
stiicken, loosed his hold, the sword slid back, and the 
opportunity of release was lost, to recur no more for 
many a long day. The unlucky wight heard as he 
crept forth a bitter voice crying : 

" Potter, Potter Thompson ! 
If thou had either drawn 
The sword or blown that horn, 
Thou'd been the luckiest man 
That ever was born." 

By nine o'clock the next morning I was in Ripon, 
having been obliged to content myself with a glimpse 
of Northallerton from the railway; and to forego a 
ramble to the Standard Hill. I was soon on the top 
of the minster tower looking abroad on the course of 
the lire, no longer a dale, as where we last saw it, 
but a broad vale teeming with corn, and adorned with 
woods, conspicuous among which are the broad forest- 
like masses of Studley Royal — the site of Fountains 
Abbey. Norton Conyers, the seat of the Nortons, 
"whose names figure in Wordsworth's poem, lies a few 
miles up the stream ; and a few miles in the other di- 
rection are Boroughbridge and Aldborough, once im- 
portant British and Roman stations. There the base 
Cartismandua, betrayer of Caractacus, held her court; 
there the vast rude camp of the legions grew into a 
sumptuous city ; and there was fought one of the battles 
of the Roses, fatal to Lancaster; and there for years 
was a stronghold of the boroughmongers. The horizon 
no longer shows a ring of bleak moorlands, but green 
swells and wood all round to the east, where the hills 
of Cleveland terminate the view. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 301 



Then, while sauntering on the floor of the stately 
edifice, we may remember that in 661 the King of 
Northumbria gave a piece of land here to one of his 
abbots for the foundation of a religious house — that 
Wilfrid, the learned bishop, replaced the first modest 
structure by a magnificent monastery, which the 
heathen Danes burnt and wasted in 860; but Wilfrid, 
who was presently created Archbishop of York, soon. 
rebuilt his church, surpassing the former in magnifi- 
cence, and by his learning and resolute assertion of Ms 
rights won for himself great honour, and a festival day 
in the calendar. The anniversary of his return from 
Rome, whither he went to claim his privileges, is still 
celebrated in Ripon, by a procession as little accordant 
with modern notions as that which perpetuates Peep- 
ing Tom's infamous memory at Coventry. The present 
edifice was built by Roger of Bishopbridge, Arch- 
bishop of York in the twelfth century, and renowned 
for his munificence ; but the variations of style — two 
characters of Norman, and Perpendicular, and a 
medley in the window, still show how much of the 
oldest edifice was incorporated with the new, and the 
alterations at different times. 

The crypt is believed to be a portion of the church, 
built by Wilfrid ; to reach it you must pass through 
narrow, darksome passages, and when there, the guide 
will not fail to show you the hole known as Wilfrid's 
needle — a needle of properties as marvellous as the gar- 
ment offered to the ladies of King Arthur's court— for 
no unchaste maiden can pass through the eye. The 
bone-house and a vault, walled and paved with human 
bones, still exists; and the guide, availing himself of a 



302 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

few extraordinary specimens, still delivers his lecture 
surrounded by ghastly accompaniments. 

Without seeing the minster, you would guess Ripon 
to be a cathedral town; it has the quiet, respectable 
air which befits the superiorities of the church. The 
market cross is a tall obelisk, and if you happen to be 
near it at nine in the evening you will, perhaps, think of 
the sonorous custom at Bainbridge, for one of the con- 
stables blows three blasts on the horn every night at 
the mayor's door, and three more by the market cross. 
And so the days of Victoria witness a custom said to 
have been begun in the days of Alfred. The horn is 
an important instrument in Ripon ; it was brought out 
and worn on feasts and ceremonial days by the u wake- 
man," or a serjeant ; certain of the mayors have taken 
pride in beautifying it, and supplying a new belt, and 
the town arms show a golden horn and black belt 
ornamented with silver. 

At Beverley there are few signs of visitors ; here, 
many, attracted by Fountains Abbey. Carriage after 
carriage laden with sight-seers rattled past as I walked 
to Studley, a distance of nearly three miles. Even at 
the toll-bar on the way you can buy guide-books as well 
as ginger-beer. Beyond the gate you may leave the 
road for a field-path, which crosses the street of 
Studley, and brings you to a short cut through the 
park. Soon we come to the magnificent beechen 
avenue, and standing at the upper end we see a long 
green walk, with the minster in the distance, and be- 
yond that the dark wolds. Then by another avenue 
on the left we approach the lake and the lodge, where 
you enter your name in a book, pay a shilling, and 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 303 

are handed over, with the party that happens to be 
waiting, to the care of a guide. He leads you along 
broad gravelled paths, between slopes of smooth green 
turf, flower-beds, shrubberies, rock work, and planta- 
tions, to vistas terminated by statues, temples, and 
lakes filled with coffee-coloured water. To me, the 
trees seemed more beautiful than anything else ; and 
fancy architecture looked poor by the side of tall 
beeches, larches, and magnificent Norway pines. And 
I could not help wishing that Earl de Grey, to whom 
the estate belongs, would abolish the puerile theatrical 
trick called The Surprise. Arrived on the brow of 
an eminence, which overlooks the valley of the little 
river Skell, you are required to stand two or three 
yards in the rear of a wooden screen. Then the guide, 
with a few words purporting, " Now, you shall see 
what you shall see," throws open the doors of the 
screen, and Fountains Abbey appears in the hollow 
below. As if the view of such a ruin could be im- 
proved by artifice. 

Then a descent to Robin Hood's Well — a spring of 
delicious water, which you will hardly pass without 
quaffing a draught to the memory of the merry outlaw. 
And now we are near the ruin, and, favoured by the 
elevation of the path, can overlook at once all the 
ground plan, the abbot's quarters — under which the 
Skell flows through an arched channel — the dormitory 
the refectory, the lofty arches of the church, and the 
noble tower rising to a height of one hundred and 
sixty-six feet. 

We were admiring the great extent and picturesque 
effects of the ruins, when a harsh whistle among the 



304 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

trees on the left struck up Pop goes the Weasel; sin- 
gularly discordant in such a place. I could not help 
saying that the whistler deserved banishment, to the 
edge of the park at least — when the guide answered, 
"Yes, but he blows the whistle with his nose." If 
Earl de Grey vrould abolish that nosing of a vulgar 
melody, as well as The Surprise, many a visitor would 
feel grateful. 

Presently we cross the bridge, and there are the yew- 
trees, one of which sheltered the pious monks, who, 
scandalized by the lax discipline of the brethren in the 
Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary's, at York, separated 
from them, migrated hither in December, 1132, and 
lived for some months, enduring great privations, with 
no other roof but the trees. Skelldale was then a wild 
and desolate spot; but the Cistercians persevered; 
Thurstan befriended them, and in course of years 
one of the grandest monastic piles that England could 
boast arose in the meadow bordering the narrow 
stream. Its roll of abbots numbers thirty-nine names, 
some of high distinction, whose tombs may yet be 
seen. 

After taking you aside to look at Fountains Hall, a 
Tudor mansion, the guide leads the way to the cloisters, 
and, unlocking a door, admits you to the interior of 
the ruins. The view of the nave, with its Norman 
pillars and arches extending for nearly two hundred 
feet, is remarkably imposing; and as you pace slowly 
over the soft green carpet into the transept, thence to 
the choir and Lady chapel, each more beautiful than 
the last, you experience unwonted emotions of delight 
and surprise. Once within the Lady chapel, you will 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 305 

hardly care to leave it for any other portion of the 
ruins, until the door is unlocked for departure. 

The return route is on the opposite side of the valley 
to that by which you approach. From a hollow in the 
clifij a little way on, you may, on turning to take a 
last look of the ruins, waken a clearly articulate echo ; 
but, alas ! the lurking voice is made to utter over-much 
nonsense. What would the devout monks say could 
they hear it ? However, if history is to be depended 
on, even they were not perfect; for towards the close 
of their career, they fell into evil ways, and became a 
reproach. As we read : 

" In summer time, when leaves grow green, 
And flowers are fresh and gay, 
Robin Hood and his merry men 
Were disposed to play." 

And when Robin, overjoyed at Little John's skill, ex- 
claims that he would ride a hundred miles to find one 
to match him, 

" That caused Will Scadlocke to laugh, 
He laught full heartily : 
There lives a curtail fryer in Fountaines Abbey 
Will beate both him and thee." 

A right sturdy friar, who with his fifty dogs kept 
Robin and his fifty men at bay, until Little John's 
shooting brought him to terms: 

" This curtail fryer had kept Fountaines dale 
Seven long yeares and more, 
There was neither knight, lord, nor earle 
Could make him yeeld before." 

Of old Jenkins, it is recorded that he was once 
steward to Lord Conyers, who used to send him at 
times with a message to the Abbot of Fountains 



306 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Abbey; and that the abbot always gave him, "besides 
wassel, a quarter of a yard of roast beef for his dinner, 
and a great black jack of strong beer." The Abbot of 
Fountains was one of three Yorkshire abbots beheaded 
on Tower-hill for their share in the Pilgrimage of 
Grace. 

Judging from the one to whom we were allotted, the 
guides are civil, and not uninformed as to the tradi- 
tions and history of Studley Royal and its neighbour- 
hood. They are instructed not to lose sight of their 
party, and to conduct them only by the prescribed 
paths. So there is no opportunity for wandering at 
will, or a leisurely meditation among the ruins. 

I walked back to the railway-station at Ripon, and 
journeyed thence to Thirsk, where a pleasant stroll 
finished the evening. Of the castle of the Mowbrays 
— the rendezvous of the English troops when marching 
to the Battle of the Standard — the site alone remains 
on the south-west of the town. The chantry, founded 
by one of the Mowbrays in Old Thirsk, has also disap- 
peared. And the great tree that stood on the green in 
the same suburb has gone too. It was under the tree 
on Thirsk green, and not at TopclifFe, as some say, that 
the fourth Earl Percy was massacred; certain it is, 
that the elections of members to serve in Parliament 
were held under the wide-spreading branches even 
from the earliest times. It was burnt down in 1818 
by a party of boys who lit a fire in the hollow trunk. 
But the ugly old shambles had not disappeared from 
the market-place: their destruction, however, so said 
the bookseller, was imminent. 

The church, dating from the fifteenth century, has 



A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 307 

recently been restored, and well repays an examina- 
tion. Among the epitaphs on the tombstones, I noticed 
a variation of the old familiar strain : 

Afflictions sore he long time bore, 

Which wore his strength away, 
That made him long for heavenly rest 

Which never will decay. 

And another, a curiosity in its way : 

Corruption, Earth, and worms, 

Shall hut refine this flesh, 
Till my triumphant spirit comes, 

To put it on A fresh. 



X2 



308 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Sutton : a pretty Village — The Hambleton Hills — Gormire Lake — 
Zigzags — A Table-Land — Boy and Bull Pup — Skawton — Ryedale — 
Rievaulx Abbey — Walter L'Espec — A Charming Ruin — The Ter- 
race — The Pavilion — Helmsley — T'Boos — Kirkby Moorside — 
Helmsley Castle— A River Swallowed — Howardian Hills — Oswald- 
kirk — Gilling — Fairfax Hall— Coxwold — Sterne's Residence — York 
—The Minster Tower— The Four Bars— The City Walls— The Ouse 
Legend — Yorkshire Philosophical Society — Ruins and Antiquities — 
St. Mary's Lodge. 

The morning dawns with promise of a glorious 
day, and of glad enjoyment for us in our coming walk. 
Our route will lead us through a rich and fertile re- 
gion to the Hambleton Hills — the range which within 
the past two weeks has so often terminated our view 
with its long blue elevations. We shall see another 
ruin — Rievaulx Abbey, and another old castle at 
Helmsley — and if all go well, shall sleep at night with- 
in the walls of York. 

A few miles on the way and we come to Sutton, a 
pretty village, where nearly every house has its front 
garden bright with flowers, with tall proud lilies here 
and there, and standard roses. And every lintel and 
door-sill is decorated with yellow ochre, and a border 
of whitewash enlivens even the humblest window. 
And the inside of the cottages is as clean as the out- 
side, and some have the front room papered. It is 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 309 

truly an English village, for no other country can 
show the like. 

Now the hills stand up grandly before us, showing 
here and there a scar above the thick woods that clothe 
their base. The road rises across the broken ground : we 
come to a lane on the left, marked by a limekiln, and 
following it upwards between ferny banks and tangled 
hedges, haunted by the thrush, we arrive presently at 
Gormire Lake, a pretty sheet of water, reposing in a 
hollow at the foot of WhitstonclifTe. It is best seen 
from the bold green bank at the upper end, for there 
you face the cliff and the hill which rises behind it, 
covered with copse and bracken. The lake is con- 
siderably above the base of the hill, and appears to 
have been formed by a landslip; it is tenanted by fish, 
and has, as I heard subsequently at York, a subter- 
ranean outlet somewhere among the fallen fragments 
at the foot of the cliff. 

Returned to the road, we have now to ascend sharp 
alpine zigzags, for the western face of Hambleton is 
precipitous ; and within a short distance the road 
makes a rise of eio-ht hundred feet. The increasing; 
ascent and change of direction opens a series of pleasing 
views, and as you look now this way, now that, along 
the diversified flanks of the hills, you will wish for 
more time to wander through such beautiful scenery. 
All that comparatively level country below was once 
covered by a sea, to which the hills we now stand on 
opposed a magnificent shore-line of cliffs ; some of their 
summits more than a thousand feet in height. 

Great is the contrast when you arrive on the brow : 
greenness and fertility suddenly give place to a bleak 



310 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

table-land, where the few patches of cultivation appear 
but meagre amid acres of brown ling. We have taken 
a great step upwards into a shrewish region. That 
white patch seen afar is a hunting and training colony, 
and there go two grooms riding, followed by a pack 
of hounds. What a chilly-looking place ! A back 
settlement in Michigan could hardly be more lonely. 
The boys may well betake themselves for amusement 
to the education of dogs. Was it here, I wonder, 
that the Yorkshire boy lived who had a bull pup, in 
the training of which he took great delight ? One day, 
seeing his father come into the yard, the youngster said, 
" Father, you go down on your hands and knees and 
blare like a bull, and see what our pup '11 do." The 
parent complied ; but while he was doing his best to 
roar like a bull, the dog flew at him and seized him 
by the lip. Now the man roared in earnest, and tried 
to shake off his tormentor, while the boy, dancing in 
ecstasy, cried, " Bear it, father ! bear it ! It '11 be the 
makin' o' t' pup." 

By-and-by comes a descent, and the road drops sud- 
denly into a deep glen, crowded with luxuriant woods. 
Many a lovely view do we get here, as the windings 
of the road bring us to wider openings and broader 
slopes of foliage. We pass the hamlet of Skawton; a 
brook becomes our companion, and woods still shut us 
in when we cross the Rye, a shallow, lively stream, and 
get a view from the bridge up Ryedale. 

A short distance up the stream brings us to the little 
village of Rivas — as the country folk call it— and to 
Rievaulx Abbey. The civil old woman who shows 
the way into the ruin, will tell you that Lord Fever- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 311 

sham does not like to see visitors get over the fence ; 
and then, stay as long as you will, she leaves you un- 
disturbed. What a pleasure awaits you! — a charm 
which Bolton and Fountains failed alike to inspire : 
perhaps because of the narrowness of the dale, and the 
feeling of deep seclusion imparted by the high thickly 
wooded hills on each side, the freedom allowed to vege- 
tation in and around the place, and to your own move- 
ments. The style is Early English, and while survey- 
ing the massive clustered columns that once supported 
the tower, the double rows of arches, and the graceful 
windows now draped with ivy of the nave, you will 
restore the light and beautiful architecture in imagi- 
nation, and not without a wish that Time would re- 
trace his flight just for one hour, and show you the 
abbey in all its primitive beauty, when Ryedale was u a 
place of vast solitude and horror," as the old chronicler 
says. 

Walter L'Espec, Lord of the Honour of Helmsley, a 
baron of high renown in his day, grieving with his 
wife, the Lady Adeline, over the death of their only 
son by a fall from a horse, built a priory at Kirkham, 
the scene of the accident, and in 1131 founded here 
an abbey for Cistercian monks. And here after some 
years, during which he distinguished himself at the 
Battle of the Standard, he took the monastic vows, and 
gave himself up to devout study and contemplation 
until his death in 1153. And then he was buried in 
the glorious edifice which he had raised to the service 
of God, little dreaming that in later days, when for- 
tress and church would be alike in ruins, other men 
would come with different thoughts, though perhaps 



312 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

not purer aims, and muse within' the walls where he 
had often knelt in prayer, and admire his work, and 
respect his memory. 

Much remains to delight the eye ; flying buttresses, 
clerestory windows, corbels, capitals, and mouldings, 
some half buried in the rank grass and nettles. And 
how the clustering masses of ivy heighten the beauty ! 
One of the stems, that seems to lend strength to the 
great column against which it leans, is more than three 
feet in circumference, and bears aloft a glorious green 
drapery. An elder grows within the nave, contributing 
its fair white blossoms to the fulness of beauty. The 
refectory, too, is half buried with ivy, and there you 
walk on what was once the floor of the crypt, and see 
the remains of the groins that supported the floor 
above : and there at one side is the recess where one of 
the monks used to read aloud some holy book while 
the others sat at dinner. Adjoining the refectory is a 
paddock enclosed by ash-trees, which appears to have 
been the cloister court. Now the leaves rustle over- 
head, and birds chirrup in the branches, and swallows 
flit in and out, and through the openings once filled by 
glass that rivalled the rainbow in colour. 

For two hours did I wander and muse; now sitting 
in the most retired nook, now retreating to a little dis- 
tance to find out the best points of view. And my first 
impression strengthened ; and I still feel that of all the 
abbeys Eievaulx is the one I should like to see again. 
But the day wore on, and warned me, though reluc- 
tant, to depart. 

A small fee to the quiet old woman makes her 
thankful, and prompts her to go and point out the 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 313 

path by which you mount zigzagging through the 
thick wpod to the great terrace near the summit of the 
hill. It will surprise you to see a natural terrace 
smooth and green as a lawn, of considerable width, 
and half a mile in length ; that is, the visible extent, 
for it stretches farther round the heights towards 
Helmsley. At one end stands a pavilion, decorated 
in the interior with paintings, at the other a domed 
temple, and from all the level between you get a 
glorious prospect up Kyedale — up the dale by which 
we came from Thirsk, and over leagues of finely- 
wooded hills, to a rim of swarthy moorland. And 
beneath, as in a nest, the ancient ruin and the little 
village repose in the sunshine, and the rapid river 
twinkles with frequent curves through the meadows. 

The gardener who lives in the basement of the 
pavilion will show you the paintings and a small pam- 
phlet, in which the subjects are described; and per- 
haps tell you that the family used to come over at 
times from Duncombe Park and dine in the orna- 
mented chamber. He will request you, moreover, to 
be careful to shut the gate by which you leave the ter- 
race at a break in the shrubbery. 

The road is at the edge of the next field, and leads 
us in about an hour to Helmsley, a quiet rural town 
very pleasantly situated beneath broad slopes of wood. 
It has a good church, a few quaint old houses, some 
still covered with thatch, a brook running along the 
street, a market cross, and a relic of the castle built by 
De Roos, when Yorkshire still wept the Conquest. 

It had surprised me while on the way from Thirsk 
to find more difficulty in understanding the rustic 



314 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 

dialect than in the remoter parts of the north and west. 
The same peculiarities prevail here in the town; and 
the landlord's daughter, who waited on me at the house 
where I dined, professed a difficulty in understanding 
me. My question about the omnibus for Gilling com- 
pletely puzzled her for a few minutes, until light 
dawned on her, and she exclaimed joyfully, u Oh ! ye 
mean t' boos !" 

A few miles east of Helmsley is Kirkby Moorside, 
where the proud Duke of Buckingham died, though 
not "in the worst inn's worst room;" and near it is 
Kirkdale, with its antiquated church, and the famous 
cave in which the discovery of the bones of wild 
animals some thirty years ago established a new epoch 
for geologists. From Kirkby you can look across to 
the hilly moors behind Whitby ; and if you incline to 
explore farther, Castle Howard will repay a visit, and 
you may go and look into the gorge through which 
the Derwent flows, at Malton, keeping in mind what 
geologists tell us, that if the gorge should happen to 
be closed by any convulsion, the Vale of Pickering 
would again become a sea. 

Of Helmsley Castle the remains are but fragmentary; 
a portion of the lofty keep stands on an eminence, 
around which you may still trace the hollows once 
filled by the triple moat. The gateway is compara- 
tively sound, the barbican is sadly dilapidated, and 
within other parts of the old walls which have been re- 
paired, Lord Feversham's tenants assemble once a year 
to pay their rents. The ruin is so pleasantly embowered 
by trees and ivy, so agreeable for a lounge on a July 
day, that I regretted being summoned away too soon 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 315 

by " t' boos" driver's horn. There was no time for a 
look at Feversham house, about half a mile distant, 
nor for a few miles' walk to Byland Abbey — another 
Cistercian edifice — founded in 1143 b}' Roger de Mow- 
bray. I could only glance at the skirts of the park, 
where preparations were making for a flower-show, and 
at the shield on the front of the lodge, bearing the 
motto, Deo, Regi, Patrice. 

The Rye here is a smaller stream than at Rievaulx, 
owing to the loss of water by the " swallows" in Dun- 
combe Park ; half a mile lower down it reappears in 
full current. But the driver is impatient; we shall 
be too late for the train at Gilling, and the steep 
Howardian Hills are to be crossed on the way. Fine 
views open over the woods; then we leave the trees for 
a while ; a vast prospect opens over the Vale of York, 
and at Oswaldkirk — a picturesque village — the road 
falling rapidly brings us once more into a wooded 
region, and in due time we come to Gilling, on the 
branch railway to Malton. 

There was not time, or I would have run up the hill 
behind the station to look at the noble avenue of 
beeches that forms a worthy approach to Fairfax Hall 
— the home of a family venerated by all who love 
liberty. I felt an emotion of regret when the station- 
clerk told me that the present Fairfax is an aged man 
and childless ; for ere long the name will disappear, and 
the estate become a possession of the Cholmleys. 

The train arrives; five miles on it stops at Coxwold, 
where Sterne passed seven years of his life ; then two 
leagues more, and we have to wait ninety minutes for 
a train down from the north, at Pilmoor junction — a 



316 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

singularly unattractive spot. Luckily, I had a book 
in my knapsack, and so beguiled the time till the bell 
rang that summoned us to York. 

In my wanderings I have sometimes had the curi- 
osity to try a Temperance Hotel, and always repented it, 
because experience showed that temperance meant poor 
diet, stingy appliances, and slovenly accommodations. 
So it was not without misgivings that I resolved to 
make one more experiment, and see what temperance 
meant in the metropolis of Yorkshire. The Hotel looks 
into Micklegate, not far from the Bar on which the 
heads of dukes and nobles were impaled, as mentioned 
in the Lay of Toicton Field. 

Considering how many quartos have been filled with 
the history and description of York, into how many 
little books the big books have been condensed, every 
traveller is supposed to know as much as he desires 
concerning the ancient city, ere he visits it. For one 
who has but a day to spare, the best way of proceeding 
is of course to get on the top of the minster tower, and 
stay there until his memory is refreshed by the sight of 
what he sees below. At a height of two hundred feet 
above the pavement you can overlook the great cluster 
of clean red roofs, and single out the twenty-five 
churches that yet remain of the fifty once visible from 
this same elevation. Clifford's Tower, a portion of the 
old castle, stands now within the precincts of the gaol ; 
the line of the city walls can be seen, and the situation 
of the four Bars ; there, by the river, is the Guildhall 
where King Charles was purchased from the Scots; 
there the small river Foss, that rises in the Howardian 
Hills, and once filled the Roman ditches, joins the Ouse. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 317 

Outside the walls, Severus Hill marks the spot where 
the emperor, who died here in 210, was burnt on his 
funereal pile with all the honours due to a wearer of 
the purple; another hill shows where Scrope was be- 
headed. To the south lies Bishopthorpe, the birth- 
place of Guy Fawkes, and once the residence of the 
bishops. Eastward is Stamford Brig, where the red- 
haired Norwegian king, flushed with victory, lost the 
battle and his life — where the spoil in gold orna- 
ments was so great, " that twelve young men could 
hardly carry it upon their shoulders" — whence the 
victor Harold marched to lose in turn life and crown 
at Hastings. On the west lies Marston Moor, and far- 
ther to the south-west the field of Towton. And then, 
from wandering afar over the broad vale, your eye re- 
turns to the minster itself, and looks down on all its 
properties, and comfortable residences, snug gardens, 
and plots of greenest turf, all covering ground on which 
the Romans built their camp, and where they erected 
a temple for the worship of heathen deities. 

As regards the interior, whatever may have been 
your emotions of admiration or wonder in other 
cathedrals, they become fuller and deeper in this of 
York. After two long visits, I still wished for more 
time to pace again the lofty aisles, to hear the organ's 
rolling notes, while marvelling at the glory of archi- 
tecture. 

Give three hours to the minster, if you can, finishing 
with a leisurely stroll round the outside, and then walk 
as far as may be along the city walls. You will see 
the four Bars — Monk, Micklegate, Walmgate, and 
Bootham ; the first-named still retaining the barbican. 



318 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

In some of the narrow lanes near the water- side you 
may discover old mansions, the residences of the mag- 
nates of York two hundred years ago, now tenanted 
by numbers of working people, and grand staircases 
and panelled rooms, looking dingy and squalid. Then 
go forth and take a turn under the trees of the New 
Walk on the bank of the Ouse, and see a much fre- 
quented resort of the citizens, who certainly cannot 
boast that their environs are romantic. You would 
hardly believe that the stream flowing so placidly by 
embosoms the rapid rivers we crossed so often while 
in the mountains. If legends deceive not, any one 
who came and threw five white pebbles into a certain 
part of the Ouse as the hour of one struck on the first 
morning of May, would then see everything he desired 
to see, past, present, and to come, on the surface of 
the water. Once a knight returning from the wars 
desired to see how it fared with his lady-love: he 
threw in the pebbles, and beheld the home of the 
maiden, a mansion near Scarborough, and a youth 
wearing a mask and cloak descending from her window, 
and the hiding of the ladder by the serving-man. 
Maddened by jealousy, he mounted and rode with 
speed; his horse dropped dead in sight of the house; 
he saw the same youth ascending the ladder, rushed 
forward, and stabbed him to the heart. It was his be- 
trothed. She was not faithless ; still loved her knight, 
and had only been to a masquerade. For many a day 
thereafter did the knight's anguish and remorse appear 
as the punishment of unlawful curiosity in the minstrel's 
lay and gestour's romance. 

Return, and take a walk in that pleasant ground, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 319 

half park, half garden, which we saw from the tower, 
and see how enviable a site has fallen to the Yorkshire 
Philosophical Society for their museum. To have such 
a scope of smooth green turf, flower-beds, shrubs, and 
trees in the heart of a city, as the shelter of remarkable 
antiquities and scientific collections, is a rare privilege. 
At one side stand the remains of St. Leonard's Hospital 
— Norman and Early English — sheltering, when I saw 
it, something far, far more ancient than itself — a huge 
fossil saurian. The ruins of St. Mary's Abbey appear 
on the side ; and between the two the Doric edifice, con- 
taining the museum, library, and offices of the society. 
In another part of the grounds, the Hospitium of the 
monks, which in a country village would pass for a 
mediaeval barn, now contains the admirable collection 
of Roman and British antiquities for which York is 
celebrated. Seeing the numerous tiles stamped with 
Latin words and numerals, the tombs and altars, the 
household utensils, and personal ornaments, your idea 
of the Roman occupation will, perhaps, become 
more vivid than before ; and again, while you ex- 
amine the fragment of the wall and tower, supposed 
to have been built by Hadrian, strong and solid even 
after the lapse of nineteen centuries. And when you 
look once more at the Abbey and the Hospital, you 
will regret the ravages of plunderers. For years the 
ruins were worked as a quarry by all who wanted 
stone for building purposes, and, as if to accelerate the 
waste, great heaps were burnt in a limekiln erected 
on the spot; and it is said that stone pillaged from 
St. Mary's at York was used for the repair of Beverley 
minster. 



320 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

However, the spirit of preservation has prevented 
further dilapidation, and old Time himself is con- 
strained to do his wasting imperceptibly. St. Mary's 
Lodge, adjoining the abbey, long neglected, and de- 
graded into a pothouse, was restored some years ago, 
and occupied as a residence by Professor Phillips, 
whose connexion w T ith the society will not soon be for- 
gotten. A charming residence it is ; and an evening 
and a morning spent within it, enable me to affirm 
that its chambers, though clothed in a modern dress, 
witness hospitality as generous as that of the monks of 
the olden time. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 321 



CHAPTER XXV. 

By Rail to Leeds — Kirkstall Abbey — Valley of the Aire — Flight to 
Settle — Giggleswick — Drunken Barnaby again — Nymph and Satyr 
— The Astonished Bagman — What do they Addle? — View from 
Castleber— George Fox's Vision on Pendle Hill — Walk to Maum — 
Companions — Horse versus Scenery — Talk by the Way — Little Wit, 
muckle Work — Malham Tarn — Ale for Recompense — Malham — 
Hospitality — Gordale Scar — Scenery versus Horse — Trap for Trout 
— A Brookside Musing — Malham Cove — Source of the Aire — To 
Keighley. 

On the second morning of my stay in York, after a 
farewell visit to the minster, I travelled by rail to 
Leeds. I had little time, and, remembering former 
days, less inclination to tarry in this great, dismal, 
cloth-weaving town ; so after a passing glance at the 
new town-hall, and some other improvements, I walked 
through the long, scraggy suburb, such as only a busy 
manufacturing town can create, to Kirkstall Abbey. 
This also was an abode of the Cistercians, founded in 
1152 by Henry de Lacy; and they who can discourse 
learnedly on such subjects pronounce it to be, as a 
ruin, more perfect than some which we have already 
visited. But it stands only a few yards from a black, 
much-frequented road, and within sight and hearing 
of a big forge, and the Aire flows past, not pellucid, 
but stained with the refuse liquor of dye-works. Still 
the site is not devoid of natural beauty ; and an hour 

T 



322 A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 

may be agreeably passed in sauntering about the ruin. 
It must have been a delightful haunt when Leeds was 
Loidis in Elmete. 

I had expected to see the valley of the Aire sprinkled 
with the villa residences of the merchants of Leeds; 
but the busy traders prefer to live in the town, and in 
all the nine miles on the way to Bradford, you have 
only a succession of factories, dye-works, and excava- 
tions, encroaching on and deforming the beauty of the 
valley, while the vegetation betrays signs of the harm- 
ful effect of smoke. 

As the afternoon drew on, I bethought myself that 
it was the last day of the week, and a desire came over 
me for one more quiet Sunday among the hills. So I 
turned aside to Newlay station, and took flight by the 
first train that came up for Settle, retracing part of my 
journey through Craven of the week before. 

On the way from the station to the town, I made a 
detour to Giggleswick, a village that claims notice for 
its grammar school, a fine cliff — part of the Craven 
fault — and a remarkable spring. Of his visit to this 
place Drunken Barnaby chants: 

" Thence to Giggleswick most steril, 
Hem'd with shelves and rocks of peril, 
Near to th' way. as a traveller goes, 
A fine fresh spring both ebbs and flows ; 
Neither know the learn'd that travel 
What procures it, salt or gravel." 

Drayton helps us to a legend which accounts for the 
origin of the spring. Suppose we pause for a few 
minutes to read it. Coming to this place, he says : 

" At Giggleswick where I a fountain can you show, 
That eight times in a day is said to ebb and flow, 
Who sometime was a nymph, and in the mountains high 
Of Craven, whose blue heads for caps put on the sky, 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 323 

Amongst th' Oreads there, and sy Ivans made abode 

(It was ere human foot upon those hills had trod), 

Of all the mountain kind and since she was most fair, 

It was a satyr's chance to see her silver hair 

Flow loosely at her back, as up a cliff she clame, 

Her beauties noting well, her features, and her frame, 

And after her he goes ; which when she did espy, 

Before him like the wind the nimble nymph doth fly, 

They hurry down the rocks, o'er hill and dale they drive, 

To take her he doth strain, t' outstrip him she doth strive, 

Like one his kind that knew, and greatly fear'd his rape, 

And to the topick gods by praying to escape, 

They turn'd her to a spring, which as she then did pant, 

When wearied with her course, her breath grew wondrous scant : 

Even as the fearful nymph, then thick and short did blow, 

Now made by them a spring, so doth she ebb and flow." 

It was supper-time when I came to the Lion at 
Settle. A commercial traveller, who was in the town 
on his first visit, looked up from his accounts while I 
sat at table to tell me of a strange word which he had 
heard during the day, and with as much astonishment 
as if it had been Esquimaux. Indeed, he had not re- 
covered from his astonishment, and could not help 
having a good laugh when he thought of the cause. 
Seeing a factory on the outskirts of the town, he had 
asked a girl, " What do they make in that factory?" 

"What do they addle?" replied the girl, inquir- 
ingly. And ever since he had been repeating to him- 
self, " What do they addle?" and always with a fresh 
burst of laughter. 

"Pretty outlandish talk that, isn't it?" he said, as he 
finished his story. 

Settle is a quiet little town, built at the foot of 
Castleber, another of the grand cliffs of Craven. To the 
inhabitants the huge rock is a recreative resort: seats 
are placed at its base; a zigzag path leads to the sum- 
mit, whence the views over the valley of the Ribble 

Y2 



324 A MONTH IX YORKSHIRE. 

are very picturesque and pleasing. On the north-west 
the broad top of Ingleborough is seen peeping over an 
intervening height ; Penyghent appears in the north ; 
and southerly, Pendle Hill rises within the borders of 
Lancashire. Very beautiful did the dewy landscape 
seem to me the next morning as I sat on the cliff top, 
while the sunlight increased upon the green expanse. 

" As we travelled," says George Fox in his Journal, 
" we came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, 
and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it ; 
which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and 
high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea 
bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill 
the Lord let me see in what places he had a great 
people to be gathered. As I went dowm, I found a 
spring of water in the side of the hill, with which I re- 
freshed myself, having eaten or drunk but little for 
several days before." The spring is still there, and 
known in the neighbourhood as George Fox's Well. 

After breakfast I set out to walk to Malham, about 
seven miles distant, and was mounting the hill at an 
easy pace behind the town, when two men came up, 
and presently told me they also were going to Maum 
— as they pronounced it. So we joined company, all 
alike strangers to the road, and came soon to the bye- 
path of which the ostler at the Lion had advised me : 
" It would save a mile or more if I could only find the 
way." A greater attraction for me was, that it led 
across the silent pastures on the top of the hills. As I 
got over the stile, an old man who was passing 
strongly urged us to keep the road; we should be sure 
to lose ourselves, and happen never get to Maum at 



A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 325 

all. To which I replied, that if a Londoner and two 
Yorkshiremen could not find their way across six miles 
of hill country they deserved to lose it ; and away we 
went across the field. Ere long we were on breezy 
slopes, which, opening here and there on the left, 
revealed curious rocky summits beyond, and as we 
trod the springy turf, my companions told me they 
had come by rail from Bentham, and were going to 
Malham for no other purpose than to see a horse which 
one of them had sent there " to grass" a few weeks 
previously. They were as much amused at my admi- 
ration of the scenery as I was at their taking so long a 
journey to look at a quadruped. They would not go 
out of their way to see Malham Cove, or Gordale Scar, 
not they: a horse was worth more than all the 
scenery. And yet, judging by their dress and general 
conversation, they were men in respectable circum- 
stances. Presently, as we passed a rocky cone spring- 
ing all yellow and gray from a bright green eminence, 
I stopped and tried to make them understand why it 
was admirable, pointing out its form, the contrasts 
of colour, and its relation to surrounding objects : 
" Well ! " said one, " I never thought of that. It do 
make a difference when you look at it that way." 

Neither of them had ever been to London, and what 
pleased them most was to hear something about the 
great city. They were as full of wonder, and as ready 
to express it, as children ; and not one of us found the 
way wearisome. We had taken a new departure when 
in sight of Stockdale, a solitary farm-house down in 
a hollow, as instructed, and gained a rougher eleva- 
tion, when the track, which had become faint, disap- 



326 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

peared altogether, and at a spot where no landmark 
was in sight to guide us. " The old man was right," 
said the Yorkshiremen ; "we have lost the way;" and 
they began a debate as to the course now to be fol- 
lowed. At length one strode off in a direction that 
would have taken him in time to the top of Penyghent. 
I looked at the sun, and declared for the east. But no, 
the other remained resolute in his opinion, and would 
not be persuaded. " Let him go," I said to his com- 
panion, who sided with me; " little wit in the head 
makes muckle work for the heels;" and we took a 
course to the east. 

After a while the other repented, and came panting 
after us ; and before we had gone half a mile we saw 
Malham Tarn, broad and blue, at a distance on the 
left ; then the track reappeared ; then Malham came in 
sight, lying far down in a pleasant valley ; and then we 
came into a rough, narrow road, descending steeply, 
and the Yorksliireman acknowledged his error. 

"Eh ! that's Maum Cove, is it?" he said, as a turn 
in the road showed us the head of the valley ; " that's 
what we've heard so much talk about. Well, it's a 
grand scar." He seemed to repent of even this morsel 
of admiration, and helped his neighbour with strong 
resolutions not to turn aside and look up at the cliff 
from its base. 

We each had a glass of ale at the public-house in 
the village. Before I was aware, one of my com- 
panions paid for the three, nor would he on any terms 
be persuaded otherwise. 

"Hoot, lad," he rejoined, "say nought about it. 



A MONTH m YOEKSHTRE. 327 

I'd pay ten times as much for the pleasure of your 
talk." And with that he silenced me. 

Although Gordale Scar is not more than a mile 
from Malham, they refused to go and see it. However, 
when we came to the grazier's house, and they heard 
that the Scar lay in the way to the pasture where the 
horse was turned out, they thought they wouldn't 
mind taking a look, just, as they went. The good wife 
brought out bread, cheese, butter, and a jug of beer, 
and would have me sit down and partake with the 
others; regarding my plea that I was a stranger, and 
had just taken a drink, as worthless. A few minutes 
sufficed, and then her son accompanied us, for without 
him the horse would never be found. We followed a 
road running along the base of the precipitous hills 
which cross the head of the valley, to a rustic tene- 
ment, dignified with the name of Gordale House ; and 
there turned towards the cliffs by the side of a brook. 
At first there is nothing to indicate your approach to 
anything extraordinary : you enter a great chasm, 
where the crags rise high and singularly rugged, 
sprinkled here and there with a small fir or graceful 
ash, where the bright green turf, sloping up into all 
the ins and outs of the dark gray cliff] and the little 
brook babbling out towards the sunshine, between 
great masses of rock fallen from above, enliven the 
otherwise gloomy scene. You might fancy yourself in 
a great roofless cave ; but, ascending to the rear, you 
find an outlet, a sudden bend in the chasm, narrower, 
and more rocky and gloomy than the. en trance. The 
cliffs rise higher and overhang fearfully above, appear- 



328 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

ing to meet indeed at the upper end ; and there, from 
that grim crevice, rushes a waterfall. The water makes 
a bound, strikes the top of a rock, and, rushing down 
on each side, forms an inverted A of splash and foam. 
And now you feel that Gordale Scar deserves all the 
admiration lavished upon it. 

"Well!" exclaimed one of the Yorkshiremen, 
"who'd ha' thought to see anything like this? And 
we living all our life within twenty mile of it ! 'Tis a 
wonderful place." 

"'So, you do believe at last," I rejoined, "that 
scenery is worth looking at, as well as a horse?" 

"That I do. I don't wonder now that you come 
all the way from London to see our hills." 

We crossed the fall, climbed up the rock, into an- 
other bend of the chasm, where the water makes its 
first plunge, unseen from below, shut in by crags that 
wear a sterner frown. You look up to the summit 
and see the water tumbling through a ring of rock, so 
strangely has the disruptive shock there broken the 
cliff. The effect both on ear and eye as the torrent 
breaks into spray and dashes downwards in fantastic 
channels, is surprisingly impressive. 

Only on one side is the pass accessible, and there so 
steep that your hands must aid in the ascent. We 
scrambled to the top and found ourselves on the 
margin of a table-land sloping gently upwards from 
the edge of the precipice, so bestrewn with upheaved 
rocks and lumps of stone, that but for the grass which 
grows rich and sweet between, whereof the sheep bite 
gladly, the aspect would indeed be savage. Along an 
irregular furrow, as it may be called, which deepens as 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 329 

it nears the precipice, flows the beck — coming, as the 
boy told us, from Malham Tarn. There was another 
small stream, he said, which disappeared in a " swal- 
low" on his father's pasture ; and in that swallow he 
had many times found large trout, struggling helplessly 
in their unexpected trap. And, pointing to the highest 
shoulder of the cliff, he said that a fox, once hard- 
pressed by the hounds, had leaped over, followed by a 
dog, and both were killed by the fall. 

After a few minutes of admiration, the Yorkshire- 
men and their guide began to move off across the fell, 
in search of the horse. One of them hoped we should 
meet again on the way back. The other said, ct Not 
much hope o' that; for he won't go away from this till 
he have learnt it all by heart." Then we shook hands, 
and they promised to set up a pile of stones at a cer- 
tain gate on their return, as a signal to me that they 
had passed through. 

True enough, I was in no haste to depart, and there 
was much to admire as well as " to learn." The sight 
of the innumerable shelves, with their fringe of grass, 
the diversity of jagged rocks thrusting their gray heads 
up into the sunlight, of the rugged and broken slopes, 
set me longing for a scramble. Hither and thither I 
went; now to a point where I could see miles of the 
cliffs, and mark how, in many places, owing to the 
splitting and shivering, the limestone wall resembled a 
row of organ pipes. Now into a gap all barren and 
stony with immemorial screes; where, however, you 
could hear the faint tinkle of hidden water, and, 
pulling away the stones, discover small ferns and pale 
blades of grass along the course of the tiny current. 



330 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

Anon, returning to the Scar, I climbed to the top of 
the crag that juts midway in the rear of the chasm, 
surveying the scene below; then selecting a nook by 
the side of the beck, a little above its leap through 
the ring, I lay down and watched the water as it ran 
with innumerable sparkling cascades from the rise of 
the fell. Here the solitude was complete, and the view 
limited to a few yards of the hollow water-course 
patched with green and gray, and the bright blue sky 
above. 

And while I lay, soothed by the murmur of the 
water, looking up at the great w T hite clouds floating 
slowly across the blue, certain thoughts that had 
haunted me for some days shaped themselves in order 
in my brain ; and with your permission, gracious 
reader, I here produce them : 

A cloud of care had come across my mind ; 

Ill-balanced hung the world : here pleasure all ; 

There hopeless toil, and cruel pangs that fall 
On Poverty, to which hut Death seemed kind. 

And so, with heart perplexed, I left behind 

The crowd of men, the towns with smoky pall, 

And sought the hills, and breathed the mountain wind. 

Hath God forgotten then the mean and small ? 

I mused, and gazed o'er purple fells outroll'd ; 
When, lo ! beneath an old thatched roof a gleam 
That kindled soon with sunset's gorgeous gold : 
Broad panes, nor fretted oriel brighter beam. 

If glories thus on lattice rude unfold, 

Of life unlit by Heaven we may not deem. 

The sun was beginning to drop towards the west 
before I left the pleasant hollow; and then with reluc- 
tance, for my holiday was near its close, and months 
would elapse before I should again hear the voice of a 
mountain brook, and slake myself in sunshine. Having 
returned to the village, I kept along the river bank to 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 331 

the head of the valley, where copse and enormous 
boulders, scattered about the narrow grassy level and 
in the bed of the stream, make a fine foreground to 
the magnificent limestone cliff of Malham Cove. Rising 
sheer to a height of nearly three hundred feet, the pre- 
cipice curving inwards, buttressed on each side by 
woody slopes, realises Wordsworth's description — 
"semicirque profound;" and while you look up at its 
pale marble-like surface, broken only by a narrow shelf 
— a stripe of green — accessible to goats and adven- 
turous boys, you will be ready to say with the bard, 

" Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound 
With finished sweep into a perfect round, 
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile 
Of all-beholding Phoebus !" 

From a distance you might well imagine it to be a 
towering ruin, from which Time has not yet gnawed 
the traces of fallen chambers and colonnades. And 
perhaps yet more will you desire to see the cataract 
which once came rushing down in one tremendous 
plunge from the summit, as is said, owing to some 
temporary stoppage of the underground channels. 
What a glorious fall that must have been ! more than 
twice the height of Niagara. 

From a low flat arch at the base of the cliff, about 
twenty feet in width, the river Aire rushes out, 
copiously fed by a subterranean source. The water 
sparkles as it flows forth into the light of day, and 
begins its course clear and bright as truth, yet fated to 
receive many a defilement ere it pours into the Ouse. 
Could the Naiads foresee what is to befall, how piteous 
would be their lamentations ! The stream is at once of 



332 A MONTH 1$ YORKSHIRE. 

considerable volume, inhabited by trout, and you may 
fish at the very mouth of the arch. 

Here, too, I scrambled up and down, crossed and re- 
crossed the stream, to find all the points of view ; then 
ascending to the hill- top I traced the line of cliff from 
the Cove to Gordale. It is a continuation of that great 
geological phenomenon already mentioned — the Craven 
fault — which, extending yet farther, terminates near 
Threshfield, the village by which we passed last Sun- 
day on our way to Kettlewell. 

My return walk was quiet enough, and favourable 
to meditation. The Yorkshiremen had set up the pre- 
concerted signal by the gate. I hope the horse did 
not drive the Scar quite out of their memory. Per- 
haps a lasting impression was made; for " Gordale- 
chasm" is, as Wordsworth says, 

" terrific as the lair 



Where the young lions couch." 

I left Settle by the last evening train," journeying 
for the third time over the same ground, and came to 
the Devonshire Arms at Keighley just before the doors 
were locked for the night. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 333 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Keighley — Men in Pinafores — Walk to Haworth — Charlotte Bronte's 
Birthplace— The Church— The Pew— The Tombstone— The Mar- 
riage Register — Shipley — Saltaire — A Model Town — Household 
Arrangements— I isn't the Gaffer — A Model Factory — Acres of 
Floors— Miles of Shafting— Weaving Shed— Thirty Thousand Yards 
a Day — Cunning Machinery — First Fleeces — Shipley Feast — Scraps 
of Dialect — To Bradford — Rival Towns — Yorkshire Sleuth-hounds — 
Die like a Britoner. 

Keighley is not pronounced Kayley, as you might 
suppose, but Keatley, or Keathley, as some of the 
natives have it, flinging in a touch of the guttural. 
Like Skipton, it is a stony town; and, as the tall 
chimneys indicate, gets its living by converting wool 
into wearing apparel of sundry kinds. You meet 
numbers of men clad in long blue pinafores, from 
throat to instep ; wool-sorters, who thus protect them- 
selves from fluff. 

The factory people were going to work next morn- 
ing — the youngsters clattering over the pavement in 
their wooden clogs — as I left the town by the Halifax 
Road, for Haworth, a walk of four miles, and all the 
way up-hill. The road runs along one side of a 
valley, which, when the houses are left behind, looks 
pretty with numerous trees and fields of grass and 
wheat, and a winding brook, and makes a pleasing 



334 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

foreground to the view of the town. The road itself 
is neither town nor country ; the footpaths, as is not un- 
common in Yorkshire, are paved nearly all the way; 
and houses are frequent tenanted by weavers, with 
here and there a little shop displaying oaten bread. 
An hour of ascent and you come to a cross-road, where, 
turning to the right for about a furlong, you see 
Haworth, piled from base to summit of a steep hill, the 
highest point crowned by the church. The road 
makes a long bend in approaching the acclivity, which, 
if you choose, may be avoided by a cut-off; but coming 
as a pilgrim you will perhaps at first desire to see 
all. You pass a board which notifies Haworth Town, 
and then begins the ascent painfully steep, bounded 
on one side by houses, on the other — where you look 
into the valley — by little gardens and a line of ragged 
little sheds and hutches. What a wearisome hill; you 
will half doubt whether horses can draw a load up it. 
Presently we have houses on both sides, and shops 
with plate-glass and mahogany mouldings, contrasting 
strongly with the general rustic aspect, and the primi- 
tive shop of the Clogger. Some of the windows 
denote an expectation of visitors; the apothecary ex- 
hibits photographs of the church, the parsonage, and 
Mr. Bronte; and no one seems surprised at your 
arrival. 

The Black Bull stands invitingly on the hill-top. I 
was ready for breakfast, and the hostess quite ready to 
serve; and while I ate she talked of the family who 
made Haworth famous. She knew them all, brother 
and sisters : Mr. Nicholls had preached the day before 
in the morning; Mr. Bronte in the afternoon. It 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 335 

was mostly in the afternoon that the old gentleman 
preached, and he delivered his sermon without a book. 
The people felt sorry for his bereavements ; and they 
all liked Mr. Nicholls. She had had a good many 
visitors, but expected "avast" before the summer was 
over. 

From the inn to the churchyard is but a few paces. 
The church is ugly enough to have had a Puritan for 
architect; and there, just beyond the crowded graves, 
stands the parsonage, as unsmiling as the church. 
After I had looked at it from a distance, and around 
on the landscape, which, in summer dress, is not dreary, 
though bounded by dark moors, the sexton came and 
admitted me to the church. He points to the low roof, 
and quotes Milton, and leads you to the family pew, 
and shows you the corner where she — that is, Charlotte 
— used to sit; and against the wall, but a few feet from 
this corner, you see the long plain memorial stone, with 
its melancholy list of names. As they descend, the in- 
scriptions crowd close together; and beneath the 
lowest, that which records the decease of her who 
wrote Jane Eyre, there remains but a narrow blank 
for those which are to follow.* 

Then the sexton, turning away to the vestry, showed 
me in the marriage register the signatures of Charlotte 
Bronte, her husband, and father ; and next, his collec- 
tion of photographs, with an intimation that they were 
for sale. When he saw that I had not the slightest 
inclination to become a purchaser, to have seen the 
place was quite enough; he said, that if I had a card 

* This stone, as stated in the newspapers, has since been replaced by 
a larger one, with sculptured ornaments. 



336 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

to send in the old gentleman would see me. It seemed 
to me, I replied, that the greatest kindness a stranger 
could show to the venerable pastor, would be, not to 
intrude upon him. 

On some of the pews I noticed small plates affixed, 
notifying that Mr. Mudbeck of Windy top Farm, or 
some other parishioner of somewhere else, "hath" 
three sittings, or four and a quarter, and so forth ; and 
this invasion by " vested rights" of the house of prayer 
and thanksgiving, appeared to me as the finishing 
touch of its unattractive features. 

The sexton invited me to ascend the tower, but dis- 
covered that the key was missing; so, as I could not 
delay, I made a brief excursion on the moor behind 
the house, where heather-bloom masked the sombre 
hue ; and then walked back to Keighley, and took the 
train for Shipley, the nearest station to Saltaire. 

It was the day of Shipley feast, and the place was 
all in a hubbub, and numbers of factory people, leav- 
ing for a while their habitual manufacture of woollen 
goods, out of a mixture of woollen and cotton, had 
come together to enjoy themselves. But no one seemed 
happy except the children; the men and women 
looked as if they did not know what to do with them- 
selves. I took the opportunity to scan faces, and could 
not fail to be struck by the general ill-favoured ex- 
pression. Whatever approach towards good looks that 
there was, clearly lay with the men ; the women were 
positively ugly, and numbers of them remarkable for 
that protruding lower jaw which so characterizes many 
of the Irish peasantry. 

Saltaire is about a mile from Shipley. It is a new 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 337 

settlement in an old country ; a most noteworthy ex- 
ample of what enterprise can and will accomplish 
where trade confides in political and social security. 
Here, in an agreeable district of the valley of the Aire 
— wooded hills on both sides — a magnificent factory 
and dependent town have been built, and with so much 
judgment as to mitigate or overcome the evils to which 
towns and factories have so long been obnoxious. The 
factory is built of stone in pure Italian style, and has 
a truly palatial appearance. What would the Plan- 
tagenets say, could they come back to life, and see 
trade inhabiting palaces far more stately than those of 
kings? The main building, of six stories, is seventy- 
two feet in height, and five hundred and fifty feet in 
length. In front, at some distance, standing quite 
apart, rises the great chimney, to an elevation of two 
hundred and fifty feet; a fine ornamental object, built 
to resemble a campanile. 

The site is well chosen on the right bank of the 
Aire, between the Leeds and Liverpool canal, and the 
Leeds and Lancaster railway. Hence the readiest 
means are available for the reception and despatch of 
merchandise. A little apart, extending up the gentle 
slope, the young town of Saltaire is built, and in such 
a way as to realize the aspirations of a sanitary re- 
former. The houses are ranged in parallelograms, of 
which I counted sixteen, the fronts looking into a 
spacious street; the backs into a lane about seven feet 
in width, which facilitates ventilation, admits the 
scavenger's cart, and serves as drying-ground. Streets 
and lanes are completely paved, the footways are ex- 
cellent ; there is a pillar post-office, and no lack of gas- 

z 



338 A MONTH m YORKSHIRE. 

lamps. The number of shopkeepers is regulated by 
Messrs. Salt, the owners of the property; and while 
one baker and grocer suffices to supply the wants of 
the place others will not be allowed to come in. A 
congregational chapel affords place for religious wor- 
ship, and a concert-hall for musical recreation, or lec- 
tures. The men who wish to tipple must go down to 
Shipley, for Saltaire, as yet, has no public-house. If I 
mistake not, the owners are unwilling that there shall 
be one. 

My request for leave to look in-doors was readily 
granted. The ordinary class of houses have a kitchen 
with oven and boiler, a sink and copper ; a parlour, or 
" house" in the vernacular, two bedrooms, and a small 
back-yard, with out-offices. The floors, mantelpiece, 
and stairs, are of stone. The rent is 3s. Id. a week. 
Gas is laid on at an extra charge, and the tenant finds 
burners. The supply of water is ample, but the water 
is hard, and has a smack of peat-bog in its flavour. A 
woman whom I saw washing, told me the water lost 
much of its hardness if left to stand awhile. Each 
house has a back-door opening into the lane ; and every 
stercorarium voids into the ash-pit, which is cleared 
out once a week at the landlord's cost. The pits are 
all accessible by a small trap-door from the lane ; hence 
there is no intrusion on the premises in the work of 
cleansing. The drainage in other respects is well 
cared for; and the whole place is so clean and sub- 
stantial, with handsome fronts to the principal rows, 
that you feel pleasure in observing it. 

The central and corner houses are a story higher 
than the rest, and what with these and the handsome 



I 
A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 339 

rows above referred to, there is accommodation for all 
classes of the employed — spinners, overlookers, and 
clerks. After building two or three of the parallelograms, 
it was discovered that cellars were desirable, and since 
then every house has its cellar, in which, as the woman 
said, " we can keep our meat and milk sweet in the 
hot weather." What a contrast, I thought, to the one 
closet in a lodging in some large town, where the food 
is kept side by side with soap and candles, the duster, 
and scrubbing-brush ! And though the stone floors 
look chilly, coal is only flvepence-halfpenny a hundred- 
weight. 

No one is allowed to live in the town who is not in 
some way employed by the firm. Most of the tenants 
to whom I spoke, expressed themselves well satisfied 
with their quarters, but two or three thought the 
houses dear; they could get a place down at Shipley, 
or Shipla, as they pronounced it, for two-and-sixpence 
a week. I put a question to the baker : " I isn't the 
gaffer," he answered. 

" Never mind," I replied ; " if you are not the master, 
we can talk all the same." 

He thought we could; and he too was one of those 
who did not like the new town. 'Twas too dear. He 
lived at Shipla, and paid but four pounds a year for a 
house with a cellar under it, and a garden behind ; and 
there he kept a pig, which was not permitted at 
Saltaire. There was " a vast" worked in the mill who 
did not live under Mr. Salt; they came from Brad- 
ford, and a train, called the Saltaire train, " brought 
'em in the morning, and fetched 'em home at night." 

The railway runs between the town and the factory. 
Z2 



340 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

You cross by a handsome stone bridge, quite in keep- 
ing with the prevalent style of architecture. The 
hands were returning from dinner as I approached after 
my survey of the colony, and the prodigious clatter of 
clogs was well-nigh deafening. My letter of introduc- 
tion procured me the favour of Mr. George Salt's 
guidance. First, he showed me a model of the pre- 
mises, by which I saw that a six-story wing, if such it 
may be called, comprising the warehouses, projects at 
right angles from the rear of the main building, with 
the combing-shed on one side, the weaving-shed on 
the other. In that combing-shed 3500 persons sat 
down in perfect comfort to a house-warming dinner. 
The weaving-shed is twice as large. Then there are 
the workshops of the smiths, machinists, and other 
artisans; packing, washing, and drying-rooms, and a 
gasometer to maintain five thousand lights; so that 
altogether the buildings cover six acres and a half. 
Include all the floors, and the space is twelve acres. 
Rails are laid from the line in front into the ground- 
floor of the building ; hence there is no porterage, no 
loading and unloading except by machinery; and the 
canal at the back is equally convenient for water- 
carriage. In front the ground is laid out as an orna- 
mental shrubbery, terminated at one corner by the 
graceful campanile. 

Then I was conducted to the boilers, a row of ten, 
sunk underground in the solid rock, below the level of 
the shrubbery. They devour one hundred and twenty 
tons of coal in a week, but with economy, for the tall 
chimney pours out no clouds of dense black smoke. 
The prevention is accomplished by careful feeding, and 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 341 

leaving the furnace-door open half an inch, to admit 
a full stream of air. I was amazed at the sight of such 
a range of boilers, and yet they were not enough, and 
an excavation was making to receive others. 

Then to the engine-room, where the sight of the 
tremendous machinery was a fresh surprise. Here 
are erected two separate pairs of engines, combining 
1250-horse power, by Fairbairn, of Manchester. You 
see how beauty of construction consorts with ponderous 
strength. Polished iron, glittering brass, and shining 
mahogany, testify to the excellence of Lancashire 
handicraft in 1853, the date of the engines. The maho- 
gany is used for casing ; and here, as with the boilers, 
every precaution is used to prevent the escape of heat. 
As you watch the great cogged fly-wheels spinning 
round with resistless force, you will hardly be surprised 
to hear that they impart motion to two miles of 
" shafting," which weighs altogether six hundred tons, 
and rotates from sixty to two hundred and fifty times 
a minute. And this shafting, of which the diameter 
is from two to fourteen inches, sets twelve hundred 
power-looms going, besides fulfilling all its other mul- 
tifarious duties. 

Then we went from one noisy floor to another among 
troops of spinners, finding everywhere proofs of the 
same presiding judgment. All is fire-proof; the 
beams and columns are of cast-iron ; the floors rest on 
arches of hollow bricks; and the ventilation, main- 
tained by inlets a few inches above the floor, and 
outlets near the ceiling, where hot-water pipes keep 
up a temperature of sixty degrees, is perfect, without 
draughts. The top room in the main building, running 



342 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

from end to end for five hundred and fifty feet without 
a break, said to be the largest room in Europe, is an 
impressive sight, filled with ranks of busy machines 
and busy workers. 

In the weaving-shed, all the driving gear is placed 
beneath the floor, so that you have a clear prospect 
over the whole area at once, uninterrupted by the 
usual array of rapid wheels and flying straps. Vast as 
is the appetite of those twelve hundred looms for warp 
and weft, it is kept satisfied from the mill's own re- 
sources ; and in one day they deliver thirty thousand 
yards of alpaca, or other kinds of woollen cloth. 
Multiply that quantity, reader, by the number of 
working days in a year, and you will discover to what 
an amazing extent the markets of the world are sup- 
plied by this one establishment of Titus Salt and Co. 

Some portions of the machinery do their work with 
marvellous precision and dexterity, 



as if the iron thought!" 



and it seemed to me that I could never have tired of 
watching the machine that took the wool, one fringe- 
like instalment after another from assiduous cylinders, 
and delivered it to another series of movements which 
placed the fibres all in one direction, and produced the 
rough outline of the future thread. Another ingenious 
device weaves two pieces at once all in one width, and 
with four selvages, of which two are, of course, in the 
middle of the web, and yet there is no difference in 
appearance between those two inner ones and those 
on the outer edges. The piece is afterwards divided 
along the narrow line left between them. Even in 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 343 

the noisome washing-room there was something to 
admire. The wool, after a course of pushing to and 
fro in a cistern of hot water by two great rakes, is de- 
livered to an endless web by a revolving cylinder. 
This cylinder»is armed with rows of long brass teeth, 
and as they would be in the way of the web on their 
descent, they disappear within the body of the cylinder 
at the critical moment, and come presently forth again 
to continue their lift. 

In the warehouse, I was shown that the wool is 
sorted into eight qualities, sometimes a ninth ; and the 
care bestowed on this preliminary operation may be 
judged of from the fact, that every sorting passes 
in succession through two sets of hands. There, 
too, I learned that the first fleece of Gimmer hogs 
is among the best of English wool; and, indeed, 
it feels quite silky in comparison with other kinds. 
The quality loses in goodness with every subsequent 
shearing. The clippings and refuse are purchased by 
the shoddy makers, those ingenious converters of old 
clothes into new. 

Where alpaca and other fine cloths are so largely 
manufactured, the question as to a continuous supply 
of finest wool becomes of serious importance. Mr. 
Salt has done what he can to provide for a supply by 
introducing the alpaca sheep into Australia and the 
Cape of Good Hope. 

On my coming, I had thought the counting-house, 
and offices, and visitors' room too luxurious for a 
mere place of business; but when I returned thither 
to take leave, with the impression of the enormous 
scale of the business, and the means by which it is 



344 A MONTH IN YOEKSH1RE. 

accomplished fresh on my mind, these appeared quite 
in harmony with all the rest. And when I stood, 
taking a last look around, on the railway bridge, I 
felt that he whose large foresight had planned so 
stately a home for industry, and set it down here in a 
sylvan valley, deserved no mean place among the 
Worthies of Yorkshire. 

I walked back to Shipley, and there spent some 
time sauntering to and fro in the throng, which had 
greatly increased during the afternoon. There was 
no increase of amusement, however, with increase of 
numbers; and the chief diversion seemed to consist 
in watching the swings and roundabouts, and eating 
gingerbread. Now and then little troops of damsels 
elbowed their way through, bedizened in such finery 
as would have thrown a negro into ecstasies. " That 
caps me!" cried a young man, as one of the parties 
went past, outvying all the rest in staring colours. 

" There's a vast of 'em coom t' feast, isn't there?" re- 
plied his companion; "and there '11 be more, afore 
noight." 

"Look at Bobby," said an aunt, of her little 
nephew, who had been disappointed of a cake; 
" look at Bobby ! He's fit to cry." 

" What's ta do?" shouted a countryman, as he was 
pushed rudely aside; " runnin' agean t' foaks ! What 
d'ye cum poakin yer noaze thro' here for?" 

" Ah'm puzzeld wi' t' craad" (crowd), answered the 
offender. 

After hearing many more fragments of West Riding- 
dialect, I forced my way to the railway station, and 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 345 

went to Bradford. Few towns show more striking 
evidences of change than this; and the bits of old 
Bradford, little one-story tenements with stone roofs, 
left standing among tall and handsome warehouses, 
strengthen the contrast. Bradford and Leeds, only 
nine miles apart, have been looked upon as rivals ; and 
it was said that no sooner did one town erect a new 
building than the other built one larger or hand- 
somer; and now Bradford boasts it St. George's Hall, 
and Leeds its Town Hall, crowned by a lofty tower. 
But what avails a tower, even two hundred and forty 
feet high, when a letter was once received, addressed, 
" Leeds, near Bradford!" 

Your Yorkshireman of the West Riding is, so Mrs. 
Gaskell says, "a sleuth-hound" after money. As 
there is nothing like testimony, let me end this chap- 
ter with a story that was told to me, and you, reader, 
may draw your own inference. 

Not far from Bradford, an old couple lived on their 
farm. The good man had been ill for some time, when 
the practitioner who attended him advised that a 
physician should be summoned from Bradford for a 
consultation. The doctor came, looked into the case, 
gave his opinion; and descending from the sick-room 
to the kitchen, was there accosted by the old woman, 
with, 

" Well, doctor, what's your charge?" 

" My fee is a guinea." 

" A guinea, — doctor ! a guinea ! And if ye come 
again, will it be another guinea?" 

" Yes ; but I shall hardly have to come again. I 



346 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

have given my opinion, and leave the patient in very 
good hands." 

" A guinea, doctor ! Hech !" 

The old woman rose, went up-stairs to her husband's 
bedside, and the doctor, who waited below, heard her 
say, a He charges a guinea. And if he comes again, 
it '11 be another guinea. Now, what do ye say?" 

"If I were ye, I'd say no, like a Britoner; and 
I'd die first!" 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 347 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Bradford's Fame — Visit to Warehouses — A Smoky Prospect — Ways 
and Means of Trade— What John Bull likes— What Brother Jo- 
nathan likes — Vulcan's Head-quarters — Cleckheaton — Heckmond- 
•wike — Busy Traffic — Mirfield — Robin Hood's Grave — Batley the 
Shoddyopolis — All the World's Tatters— Aspects of Batley — A Boy 
capt— The Devil's Den— Grinding Rags— Mixing and Oiling — 
Shoddy and Shoddy — Tricks with Rags — The Scribbling Machine — 
Short Flocks, Long Threads — Spinners and Weavers — Dyeing, 
Dressing, and Pressing — A Moral in Shoddy — A Surprise of Real 
Cloth— Iron, Lead, and Coal — To Wakefield — A Disappointment — 
The Old Chapel— The Battle-field— To Barnsley— Bairnsla Dialect 
— Sheffield. 

"What is Bradford famous for?" was the ques- 
tion put at a school-examination somewhere within the 
West Riding. i ■.. . 

" For its shoddy," answered one of the boys. An 
answer that greatly scandalized certain of the parents 
who had come from Bradford ; and not without reason, 
for although shoddy is manufactured within sight of 
the smoke of the town, Bradford is really the great 
mart for stuffs and worsted goods, as Leeds is for 
broadcloth. 

I had seen how stuffs were made, and wished now 
to see in what manner they were sent into the market. 
A clerk who came to the inn during the evening for 
a glass of ale and gossip, invited me to visit the ware- 



348 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

house in which he was employed, on the following 
morning. I went, and as he had not repented of his 
invitation, I saw all he had to show, and then, at his 
suggestion, went to the " crack " warehouse of Brad- 
ford, where business is carried on with elegant and 
somewhat luxurious appliances. I handed my card to 
a gentleman in the office, and was not surprised to 
hear for answer that strangers could not be admitted 
for obvious reasons, and was turning away, when he 
said, musingly, that my name seemed familiar to him, 
and after a little reflection he added : " Yes, yes — now 
I have it. It was on the title-page of A Londoner's 
Walk to the LanoVs End. How that book made 
me long for a trip to Cornwall! And you are the 
Londoner ! Well, of course you shall see the ware- 
house." 

So I was introduced into the lift, and away we 
were hoisted up to the fifth or sixth story, when I was 
first led to the gazebo on the roof, that I might enjoy 
the prospect of the town and neighbourhood. What 
a prospect! a great mass of houses, and rounded 
heights beyond, dimly seen through a rolling canopy 
of smoke. The sky of London is brilliant in com- 
parison. May it never be my doom to live in Brad- 
ford, or Leeds, or Sheffield, or Manchester ! 

We soon exchanged the dismal outlook for the top- 
most floor, where I saw heaps of "tabs," stacks of 
boards, boxes and paper for packing. The tabs, 
which are the narrow strips that hang out from the 
ends of the pieces while on show, are kept for a time 
as references. The number and variety of the boards, 
on which the pieces are wound, are surprising: some 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 349 

are thick, to add bulk and weight to the piece of 
stuff in which it is to be enveloped; some thin, to 
save cost in transport; some broad, some narrow, so 
that every market may have its whims and wants 
gratified. The Germans, who pay heavily for carriage, 
prefer thin boards : Brother Jonathan, as well as John 
Bull, likes the sight of a good pennyworth, and gets a 
thick board. The preparation of these boards alone 
must be no insignificant branch of trade in Bradford; 
and remembering how many warehouses in other towns 
use up stacks of boards every month, we see a large 
consumption of Norway timber at once accounted for. 
I saw the press cutting the slips of white paper in 
which the pieces are tied, and tickets and fancy bands 
and labels intended to tickle the eyes of customers, 
without end. A peculiar kind of embossed paper, 
somewhat resembling a rough towel, is provided to 
wrap up the American purchases; and Brother Jona- 
than requires that his pieces should be folded in a 
peculiar way, so that he may show the quality without 
loss of time when selling to his own impatient country- 
men. Nimble machines measure the pieces at the rate 
of a thousand yards an hour, and others wind the 
lengths promptly on the boards; and, judging from 
appearances, clerks, salesmen, and porters work as if 
they too were actuated by the steam. And then, 
while descending from floor to floor, to see the pro- 
digious piles of pieces on racks and shelves, or awaiting 
their turn in the hydraulic press which packs them 
solid as a bastion, was a wonder. There were moreen, 
bombazine, alpaca, camlet, Orleans, barege, Australian 
cord, cable cord, and many kinds as new to me as 



350 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

they would have been to a fakir. One heavy black 
stuff was pointed out as manufactured purposely for 
the vestments of Romish priests. And running through 
each room I saw a small lift, in which account-books, 
orders, patterns, and such like, are passed up and 
down, and now and then a signal to a clerk to be cau- 
tious of pushing sales. And, lastly, on the ground- 
floor I saw the handsome dining-room, wherein many 
a customer has enjoyed the hospitality of the firm, 
and drunk the generous sherry that inspired him to 
buy up to a thousand when he purposed only five 
hundred. 

This brief sketch includes the two warehouses ; one, 
however — the elegant one — confines itself to the home 
trade. I made due acknowledgments for the favour 
shown to me, and hastening to the railway-station, 
took the train for Mirfield. The line passes the great 
Lowmoor iron-works, where furnaces, little mountains 
of ore, coal, limestone, and iron, and cranes and 
trucks, and overwhelming smoke, and a general black- 
ness, suggest ideas of Vulcan and his tremendous 
smithy. And besides there is a stir, and a going to 
and fro, that betoken urgent work; and you will be- 
lieve a passenger's remark, that u Lowmoor could of 
itself keep a railway going." We pass Cleckheaton 
and Heckmondwike, places that have something sylvan 
in the sound of their names; but although the coun- 
try if left to itself would be pretty enough, it is sadly 
disfigured by smoke and the remorseless inroads of 
trade. Yet who can travel here in the West Riding 
and not be struck by the busy traffic, the sight of 
chimneys, quarries, canals, and tramways, and trains 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 351 

heavy laden, coming and going continually ! And 
connected with this traffic there is one particular espe- 
cially worthy of imitation in other counties : it is, that 
nearly every train throughout the day has third-class 
carriages. 

Mirfield is in the pleasant valley of the Calder. 
While waiting for a train to Batley, I walked along 
the bank of the stream thinking of Robin Hood, who 
lies buried at Kirklees, a few miles up the valley, 
where a treacherous hand let out his life : 

" Lay me a green sod under my head, 

And another at my feet; 
And lay my bent bow by my side, 

"Which was my music sweet ; 
And make my grave of gravel and green, 

Which is most right and meet. 

" Let me have length and breadth enough, 
With a green sod under my head ; 
That they may say, when I am dead, 
Here lies bold Robin Hood." 

The object of my visit to Batley was to see the 
making of shoddy. To leave Yorkshire ignorant of 
one of our latest national institutions would be a re- 
proach. We live in an age of shoddy, in more senses 
than one. You may begin with the hovel, and trace 
shoddy all through society, even up to the House of 
Peers. I had not long to wait : there was a bird's-eye 
view of Dewsbury in passing, and a few minutes 
brought me to Batley, the head-quarters of shoddy. 
On alighting at the station, the sight of great pockets 
or bales piled up in stacks or laden on trucks, every 
bale branded Anvers, and casks of oil from Sevila, 
gave me at once a proof that I had come to the right 
place ; for here were rags shipped at Antwerp from all 



352 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

parts of northern Europe. Think of that. Hither 
were brought tatters from pediculous Poland, from the 
gipseys of Hungary, from the beggars and scarecrows 
of Germany, from the frowsy peasants of Muscovy; 
to say nothing of snips and shreds from monks' gowns 
and lawyers' robes, from postilions' jackets and sol- 
diers' uniforms, from maidens' boddices and noblemen's 
cloaks. A vast medley, truly ! and all to be manu- 
factured into broadcloth in Yorkshire. No wonder 
that the Univers declares England is to perish by her 
commerce. 

The walk to the town gives you such a view as can 
only be seen in a manufacturing district: hills, fields, 
meadows, and rough slopes, all bestrewn with cottages, 
factories, warehouses, sheds, clouded here and^ there 
by smoke; roads and paths wandering apparently 
anywhere; here and there a quarry, and piles of 
squared stone ; heaps of refuse ; wheat-fields in among 
the houses; potato-plots in little levels, and every- 
thing giving you the impression of waiting to be 
finished. Add to all this, troops of men and women, 
boys and girls— the girls with a kerchief pinned over 
the head, the corner hanging behind — going ho me 
to dinner, and a mighty noise of clogs, and trucks 
laden with rags and barrels of oil, and you will have 
an idea of Batley, as I saw it on my arrival. 

Having found the factory of which I was in search, 
I had to wait a few minutes for the appearance of the 
principal. A boy, who was amusing himself in the 
office, remarked, when he heard that I had never yet 
seen shoddy made : " Well, it'll cap ye when ye get 
among the machinery; that's all!" He himself had 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 353 

been capt once in his life: it was in the previous 
summer, when his uncle took him to Blackpool, and 
he first beheld the sea. (i That capt me, that did," 
he said, with the gravity of a philosopher. 

Seeing that the principal hesitated, even after he 
had read my letter, I began to imagine that shoddy- 
making involved important secrets. " Come to see 
what you can pick up, eh?" he said. However, when 
he heard that I was in no way connected with manu- 
factures, and had come, not as a spy, but simply out 
of honest curiosity, to see how old rags were ground 
into new cloth, he smiled, and led me forthwith into 
the devil's den. There I saw a cylinder revolving 
with a velocity too rapid for the eye to follow, whiz- 
zing and roaring, as if in agony, and throwing off a 
cloud of light woolly fibres, that floated in the air, 
and a stream of nocks that fell in a heap at the end of 
the room. It took three minutes to stop the monster; 
and when the motion ceased, I saw that the cylinder 
was full of blunt steel teeth, which, seizing whatever 
was presented to them in the shape of rags, tore it 
thoroughly to pieces ; in fact, ground it up into flocks 
of short, frizzly -looking fibre, resembling negro-hair, 
yet soft and free from knots. The cylinder is fed by 
a travelling web, which brings a layer of rags con- 
tinually up to the teeth. On this occasion, the quality 
of the grist, as one might call it, was respectable — 
nothing but fathoms of list which had never been 
defiled. So rapidly did the greedy devil devour it, 
that the two attendant imps were kept fully employed 
in feeding; and fast as the pack of rags diminished, 
the heap of flocks increased. And so, amid noise and 
2 A 



354 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

dust, the work goes on day after day ; and the man 
who superintends, aided by his two boys, earns four 
pounds a week, grinding the rags as they come, for 
thirty shillings a pack. 

The flocks are carried away to the mixing-house. 
As we turned aside, the devil began to whirl once 
more; and before we had entered the other door, I 
heard the ferocious howl in full vigour. The road 
between the buildings was encumbered with oil-casks, 
pieces of cloth, lying in the dust, as if of no value, 
and packs of rags. " It will all come right by-and- 
by," said the chief, as I pointed to the littery heaps; 
and, pausing by one of the packs which contained 
what he called "mungo," that is, shreds of such cloth 
as clergymen's coats are made of, he made me aware 
that there is shoddy and shoddy. That which makes 
the longest fibre is, of course, the best; and some of 
the choice sorts are worked up into marketable cloth, 
without a fresh dyeing. 

Great masses of the flocks, with passage-ways be- 
tween, lay heaped on the stone floor of the mixing- 
house. Here, according to the quality required, the 
long fibre is mixed in certain proportions with the 
short; and to facilitate the subsequent operations, the 
several heaps are lightly sprinkled with oil. A dingy 
brown or black was the prevalent colour; but some 
of the heaps were gray, and would be converted into 
undyed cloth of the same colour. It seemed to me 
that the principal ingredient therein was old worsted 
stockings; and yet, before many days, those heaps 
would become gray cloth fit for the jackets and man- 
tles of winsome maidens. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 355 

I asked my conductor if it were true, as I had 
heard, that shoddy-makers purchased the waste, be- 
grimed cotton wads with which stokers and " engine- 
tenters" wipe the machinery, or the dirty refuse of 
wool sorters, or every kind of ragged rubbish. He 
did not think such things were done in Batley; for 
his part, he used none but best rags, and could keep two 
factories always going. He had heard of the man 
who spread greasy cotton-waste over his field, and 
who, when the land had absorbed all the grease, 
gathered up the cotton, and sold it to the shoddy- 
makers ; but he doubted the truth of the story. True 
or not, it implies great toleration among a certain 
class of manufacturers. Rags, not good enough for 
shoddy, are used as manure for the hops in Kent; so 
we get shoddy in our beer as well as in our broad- 
cloth. 

In the next process, the flocks are intimately mixed 
by passing over and under a series of rollers, and 
come forth from the last looking something like wool. 
Then the wool, as we may now call it, goes to the 
" scribbling-machine," which, after torturing it among 
a dozen rollers of various dimensions, delivers it 
yard by yard in the form of a loose thick cable, with 
a run of the fibres in one direction. The carding- 
machine takes the cable lengths, subjects them to 
another course of torture, confirms the direction of the 
fibres, and reduces the cable into a chenille of about 
.the thickness of a lady's finger. This chenille is pro- 
duced in lengths of about five feet, across the machine, 
parallel with the rollers, and is immediately trans- 
ferred to the piecing-machine, by a highly ingenious 
2 a2 



356 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

process. Each length, as it is finished, drops into a 
long, narrow, tin tray; the tray moves forward; the 
next behind it receives a chenille; then the third; 
then the fourth; and so on, up to ten. By this time, 
they have advanced over a table on which lies what 
may be described as a wooden gridiron ; there is a 
momentary pause, and then the ten trays, turning all 
at once upside down, drop the chenilles severally 
between the bars of the gridiron. At one side of 
the table is a row of large spindles, or rollers, on 
which the chenilles — cardings, is the factory word — 
are wound, and the dropping is so contrived that the 
ends of those which fall overlap the ends of the lengths 
on the spindles by about an inch. Now the gridiron 
begins to vibrate, and by its movement beats the ends 
together; joins each chenille, in fact, to the one before 
it; then the spindles whirl, and draw in the lengths, 
leaving only enough for the overlap ; and no sooner 
is this accomplished than the ten trays drop another 
supply, which is treated in the same expeditious 
manner, until the spindles are filled. No time is lost, 
for the full ones are immediately replaced by empty 
ones. 

Now comes the spinners' turn. They take these 
full spindles, submit them to the action of their 
machinery by dozens at a time, and spin the large, 
loose chenilles into yarns of different degrees of 
strength and fineness, or, perhaps one should say, 
coarseness, ready for the weavers. And in this way 
those heaps of short, uncompliant negro hair, in which 
you could hardly find a fibre three inches long, are 
transformed into long, continuous threads, able to bear 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 357 

the rapid jerks of the loom. I could not sufficiently 
admire its ingenuity. Who would have imagined 
that among the appliances of shoddy ! Moreover, 
wages are good at Batley, and the spinners can earn 
from forty to forty-five shillings a week. 

The women who attend the looms earn nine or 
eighteen shillings a week, according as they weave one 
or two pieces. Next comes the fulling process : the 
pieces are damped, and thumped for a whole day by a 
dozen ponderous mallets; then the raising of the pile 
on one or both sides of the cloth, either by rollers or by 
hand. In the latter case, two men stretch a piece as 
high as they can reach on a vertical frame, and scratch 
the surface downwards with small hand-cards, the 
teeth of which are fine steel wire. Genuine broad- 
cloth can only be dressed by a teazel of Nature's own 
growing; but shoddy, far less delicate, submits to the 
metal. So the men keep on, length after length, till 
the piece is finished. Then the dyers have their turn, 
and if you venture to walk through their sloppy, 
steamy department, you will see men stirring the 
pieces about in vats, and some pieces hanging to 
rollers which keep them for a while running through 
the liquor. From the dye-house the pieces are carried 
to the tenter-ground and stretched in one length on 
vertical posts; and after a sufficient course of sun and 
air, they undergo the finishing process — clipping the 
surface and hot-pressing. 

From what I saw in the tenter-ground, I discovered 
that pilot cloth is shoddy; that glossy beavers and 
silky-looking mohairs are shoddy; that the Petershams 
so largely exported to the United States are shoddy; 



358 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

that the soft, delicate cloths in which ladies feel so com- 
fortable, and look so graceful, are shoddy; that the 
" fabric " of Talmas, Raglans, and paletots, and of other 
garments in which fine gentlemen go to the Derby, or 
to the Royal Academy Exhibition, or to the evening 
services in Westminster Abbey, are shoddy. And if 
Germany sends us abundance of rags, we send to 
Germany enormous quantities of shoddy in return. 
The best quality manufactured at Batley is worth ten 
shillings a yard; the commonest not more than one 
shilling. 

Broadcloth at a shilling a yard almost staggers credi- 
bility. After that we may truly say that shoddy is a 
great leveller. 

The workpeople are, with few exceptions, thrifty and 
persevering. Some of the spinners take advantage of 
their good wages to build cottages and become land- 
lords. A walk through Batley shows you that thought 
has been taken for their spiritual and moral culture; 
and in fine weather they betake themselves for out- 
doors recreation to an ancient manor-house, which I 
was told is situate beyond the hill that rears its pleasant 
woods aloft in sight of the factories. 

The folk of the surrounding districts are accus- 
tomed to make merry over the shoddy-makers, regard- 
ing them as Gibeonites, and many a story do they tell 
concerning these clever conjurors, and their transfor- 
mations of old clothes into new. Once, they say, a 
portly Quaker walked into Batley, just as the " mill- 
hands " were going to dinner : he came from the west, 
and was clad in that excellent broadcloth which is the 
pride of Gloucestershire. " Hey !" cried the hands, as he 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 359 

passed among them — " hey ! look at that now ! There's 
a bit of real cloth. Lookey, lookey ! we never saw the 
like afore :" and they surrounded the worthy stranger, 
and kept him prisoner until they had all felt the tex- 
ture of his coat, and expressed their admiration. 

Again, while waiting at Mirfield, was I struck by 
the frequency of trains, and counted ten in an hour 
and a half. In 1856, a million and quarter tons of iron 
ore were dug in the Cleveland and Whitby districts; 
and the quantity of pig-iron made in Yorkshire was 
275,600 tons, of which the West Riding produced 
96,000. In the same year 8986 tons of lead, and 302 
ounces of silver were made within the county; and 
Yorkshire furnished 9,000,000 towards the sixty mil- 
lions tons and a half of coal dug in all the kingdom. 

I journeyed on to Wakefield; and, as it proved, to a 
disappointment. I had hoped for a sight of Walton 
Hall, and of the well-known naturalist, who there 
fulfils the rites of hospitality with a generous hand. 
Through a friend of his Mr. Waterton had assured me 
of a welcome ; but on arriving at Wakefield, I heard 
that he had started the day before for the Continent. 
So, instead of a walk to the Hall, I resolved to go on 
to Sheffield, by the last train. This left me time for a 
ramble. I went down to the bridge, and revived my 
recollections of the little chapel which for four hundred 
years has shown its rich and beautiful front to all who 
there cross the Calder, and I rejoiced to see that it had 
been restored and was protected by a railing. It was 
built — some say renewed — by Edward the Fourth to 
the memory of those who fell in the battle of Wake- 



360 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

field — a battle fatal to the House of York — and fatal 
to the victors; for the cruelties there perpetrated by 
Black Clifford and other knights, were repaid with 
tenfold vengeance at Towton. The place where 
Richard, Duke of York, fell, may still be seen ; and 
near it, a little more than a mile from the town, the 
eminence on which stood Sandal Castle, a fortress 
singularly picturesque, as shown in old engravings. 

After a succession of stony towns and smoky towns, 
there was something cheerful in the distant view of 
Wakefield with its clean red brick. It has some hand- 
some streets; and in the old thoroughfares you may 
see relics of the medieval times in ancient timbered 
houses. Leland describes it as " a very quick market 
town, and meatly large, the whole profit of which 
standeth by coarse drapery." Y r ou will soon learn by 
a walk through the streets that "very quick" still 
applies. 

Signs of manufactures are repeated as Wakefield, 
with its green neighbourhood, is left behind, and at 
Barnsley the air is again darkened by smoke. We 
had to change trains here, and thought ourselves lucky 
in finding that the Sheffield train had for once con- 
descended to lay aside its surly impatience, and await 
the arrival from Wakefield. As we pushed through 
the throng on the platform, I heard many a specimen 
of the vernacular peculiar to Bairnsla, as the natives 
call it. How shall one who has not spent years among 
them essay to reproduce the sounds? Fortunately 
there is a Bairnsla Foaks Almanack in which the work 
is done ready to our hand; and here is a passage 
quoted from Tom Treddlehoylc 's Peep at T ' Manchister 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 361 

Exhebtshan, giving us a notion of the sort of dialect 
talked by the Queen's subjects in this part of Yorkshire. 

Tom is looking about and " moralizing" when " a 
strange bussal cum on all ov a sudden daan below 
stairs, an foaks hurryin e wun dereckshan ! ' Wot's ta 
do?' thowt ah; an daan t' steps ah clattard, runnin 
full bump agean t' foaks a t' bottom, an before thade 
time to grumal or get ther faces saard, ah axt, ' Wot 
ther wor ta do ? ' — c Lord John Russel's cum in/ sed 
thay. Hearin this, there diddant need anuther wurd, 
for after springin up on tame teppytoes ta get t' latte- 
tude az ta whereabaats he wor, ah duckt me head 
underneath foaks's airms, an away ah slipt throo t' craad 
az if ide been soapt all ovver, an gettin az near him 
az ah durst ta be manardly, ah axt a gentleman at hed 
a glass button stuck before his ee, in a whisperin soart 
of a tone, ' Which wor Lord John Russel?' an bein 
pointed aght ta ma, ah lookt an lookt agean, but cud- 
dant believe at it wor him, he wor sich an a little bit 
ov an hofalas-lookin chap, — not much unlike a horse- 
jocky at wun's seen at t' Donkister races, an wot wor 
just getherin hiz crums up after a good sweatin daan 
for t' Ledger, — an away ah went, az sharp az ah cud 
squeaze aght, thinkin to mesen, c Bless us, wot an a 
ta-do there iz abaght nowt ! a man's but a man, an a 
lord's na more !' We that thowt, an hevin gottan nicely 
aght a t' throng, we t' loss a nobbat wun button, an a 
few stitches stretcht a bit e t' coit-back, ah thowt hauf- 
an-haar's quiat woddant be amiss." 

We went on a few miles to a little station called 
Wombwell, where we had again to change trains. 
But the train from Doncaster hud not arrived ; so while 



362 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

the passengers waited they dispersed themselves about 
the sides of the railway, finding seats on the banks or 
fences, and sat talking in groups, and wondering at 
the delay. The stars shone out, twinkling brightly, be- 
fore the train came up, more than an hour beyond its 
time, and it was late when we reached Sheffield. I 
turned at a venture into the first decent-looking public- 
house in The Wicker, and was rewarded by finding 
good entertainment and thorough cleanliness. 



A MONTH IN YORKSHJKE. 363 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Clouds of Blacks — "What Sheffield was and is — A Detestable Town- 
Razors and Knives — Perfect Work, Imperfect Workmen — Foul Talk 
— How Files are Made — Good Iron, Good Steel — Breaking-up and 
Melting — Making the Crucibles — Casting — Ingots — File Forgers — 
Machinery Baffled — Cutting the Teeth — Hardening— Cleaning and 
Testing— Elliott's Statue — A Ramble to the Corn-law Rhymer's 
Haunt — Rivelin— Bilberry-gatherers — Ribbledin — The Poet's Words 
— A Desecration — To Manchester — A few Words on the Exhibition. 

When I woke in the morning and saw what a 
stratum of " blacks" had come in at the window during 
the night, I admired still more the persevering virtue 
which maintains cleanliness under such very adverse 
circumstances. We commonly think the London atmo- 
sphere bad ; but it is purity compared with Sheffield. 
The town, too, is full of strange, uncouth noises, by 
night as well as by day, that send their echo afar. I 
had been woke more than once by ponderous thumps 
and sounding shocks, which made me fancy the 
Cyclops themselves were taking a turn at the hammers. 
Sheffield raised a regiment to march against the Sepoys ; 
why not raise a company to put down its own pestife- 
rous blacks? 

Who would think that here grew the many-leagued 
oak forests in which Gurth and Wamba roamed; that 
in a later day, when the Talbots were lords of the 



364 A MONTH IN YOKKSHIRE. 

domain, there were trees in the park under which a 
hundred horses might find shelter? Here lived that 
famous Talbot, the terror of the French ; here George, 
the fourth Earl, built a mansion in which Wolsey 
lodged while on his way to die at Leicester; here the 
Queen of Scots was kept for a while in durance ; here, 
as appears by a Court Roll, dated 1590, the Right Ho- 
nourable George Earl of Shrewsbury assented to the 
trade regulations of " the Fellowship and Company of 
Cutlers and Makers of Knives," whose handicraft was 
even then an ancient one, for Chaucer mentions the 
u Sheffield whittle." Now, what with furnaces and 
forges, rolling-mills, and the many contrivances used 
by the men of iron and steel, the landscape is spoiled 
of its loveliness, and Silence is driven to remoter 
haunts. 

On the other hand, Sheffield is renowned for its 
knives and files all over the world. It boasts a 
People's College and a Philosophical Society. With 
it are associated the names of Chantrey, Montgomery, 
and Ebenezer Elliott. When you see the place, you 
will not wonder that Elliott's poetry is what it is; for 
how could a man be expected to write amiable things 
in such a detestable town? 

Ever since my conversation with the Mechamker, 
while on the way to Prague, when he spoke so ear- 
nestly in praise of English files, my desire to see how 
files were made became impatiently strong. Sheffield 
is famous also for razors; so there was a sight of two 
interesting manufactures to be hoped for when I set 
out after breakfast to test my credentials. Fortune 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 365 

favoured me; and, in the works of Messrs. Rodgers, I 
saw the men take flat bars of steel and shape them by 
the aid of fire and hammer into razor-blades with re- 
markable expedition and accuracy. So expert have 
they become by long practice, that with the hammer 
only they form the blade and tang so nicely, as to 
leave but little for the grinders to waste. I saw also 
the forging of knife-blades, the making of the handles, 
the sawing of the buckhorn and ivory by circular saws, 
and the heap of ivory-dust which is sold to knowing 
cooks, and by them converted into gelatine. I saw 
how the knives are fitted together with temporary 
rivets to ensure perfect action and finish, before the 
final touches are given. And as we went from room 
to room, and I thought that each man had been work- 
ing for years at the same thing, repeating the same 
movements over and over again, I could not help 
pitying them; for it seemed to me that they were a 
sacrifice to the high reputation of English cutlery. 
Something more than a People's College and Me- 
chanics' Institute would be needed to counteract the 
deadening effect of unvarying mechanical occupation ; 
and where there is no relish for out-door recreation in 
the woods and on the hills, hurtful excitements are the 
natural consequence. 

I had often heard that Sheffield is the most foul- 
mouthed town in the kingdom, and my experiences 
unfortunately add confirmation. While in the train 
coming from Barnsley, and in my walks about the 
town, I heard more filthy and obscene talk than could 
be heard in Wapping in a year. Not to trust to the 



366 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

impressions of a day, I inquired of a resident banker, 
and he testified that the foul talk that assailed his ears, 
was, to him, a continual affliction. 

On the wall of the grinding-shop a tablet, set up at 
the cost of the men, preserves the name of a grinder, 
who by excellence of workmanship and long and faith- 
ful service, achieved merit for himself and the trade. 
At their work the men sit astride on a low seat in 
rows of four, one behind the other, leaning over their 
stones and wheels. For razors, the grindstones are 
small, so as to produce the hollow surface which 
favours fineness of edge. From the first a vivid stream 
of sparks flies off; but the second is a leaden wheel ; 
the third is leather touched with crocus, to give the 
polish to the steel ; and after that comes the whet. To 
carry off the dust, each man has a fan-box in front of 
his wheel, through which all the noxious floating par- 
ticles are drawn by the rapid current of air therein 
produced. To this fan the grinders of the present 
generation owe more years of health and life than fell 
to the lot of their fathers, who inhaled the dust, earned 
high wages, and died soon of disease of the lungs. I 
was surprised by the men's dexterity; by a series of 
quick movements, they finished every part of the blade 
on the stone and wheels. 

From the razors I went to the files, at Moss and 
Gamble's manufactory, in another part of the town. 
There is scarcely a street from which you cannot see 
the hills crowned by wood which environ the town — 
that is, at intervals only, through the thinnest streams 
of smoke. The town itself is hilly, and the more you 
see of the neighbourhood, the more will you agree 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 367 

with those who say, " What a beautiful place Sheffield 
would be, if Sheffield were not there !" 

My first impression of the file -works, combined 
stacks of Swedish iron in bars; ranges of steel bars of 
various shape, square, flat, three-cornered, round, and 
half-round; heaps of broken steel, the fresh edges 
glittering in the sun; heaps of broken crucibles, and 
the roar of furnaces, noise of bellows, hammer strokes 
innumerable, and dust and smoke, and other things, 
that to a stranger had very much the appearance of 
rubbish and confusion. 

However, there is no confusion; every man is dili- 
gent at his task ; so if you please, reader, we will try 
and get a notion of the way in which those bars of 
Swedish iron are converted into excellent files. 
Swedish iron is chosen because it is the best; no iron 
hitherto discovered equals it for purity and strength, 
and of this the most esteemed is known as " Hoop L," 
from its brand being an L within a hoop. " If you 
want good steel to come out of the furnace," say the 
knowing ones, "you must put good iron in;" and 
some of them hold that, " when the devil is put into 
the crucible, nothing but the devil will come out:" 
hence we may believe their moral code to be sufficient 
for its purpose. The bars, at a guess, are about eight 
feet long, three inches broad, and one inch thick. To 
begin the process, they are piled in a furnace between 
alternate layers of charcoal, the surfaces kept carefully 
from contact, and are there subjected to fire for eight 
or nine days. To enable the workmen to watch the 
process, small trial pieces are so placed that they can 
be drawn out for examination through a small hole in 



368 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

the front of the furnace. In large furnaces, twelve 
tons of iron are converted at once. The long-continued 
heat which is kept below the melting-point, drives off 
the impurities; the bars, from contact with the char- 
coal, become carbonized and hardened ; and when the 
fiery ordeal is over, they appear thickly bossed with 
bubbles or blisters, in which condition they are de- 
scribed as " blistered steel." 

Now come the operations which convert these blis- 
tered bars into the finished bars of steel above men- 
tioned, smooth and uniform of surface, and well-nigh 
hard as diamond. The blistered bars are taken from 
the furnace and broken up into small pieces ; the fresh 
edges show innumerable crystals of different dimen- 
sions, according to the quality of the iron, and have 
much the appearance of frosted silver. The pieces 
are carefully assorted and weighed. The weighers 
judge of the quality at a glance, and mix the sorts in 
due proportion in the scales in readiness for the melters, 
who put each parcel into its proper crucible, and drop 
the crucibles through holes in a floor into a glowing 
furnace, where they are left for about half a day. 

The making of the crucibles is a much more im- 
portant part of the operation than would be imagined. 
They must be of uniform dimensions and quality, or 
the steel is deteriorated, and they fail in the fire. They 
are made on the premises, for every melting requires 
new crucibles. In an underground chamber I saw 
men at work, treading a large flat heap of fire-clay into 
proper consistency, weighing it into lumps of a given 
weight; placing these lumps one after the other in a 
circular mould, and driving in upon them, with a pon- 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 369 

derous mallet, a circular block of the same form and 
height as the mould, but smaller. As the block sinks 
under the heavy blows, the clay is forced against the 
sides of the mould ; and when the block can descend 
no further, there appears all round it a dense ring of 
clay, and the mould is full. Now, with a dexterous 
turn, the block is drawn out; the crucible is separated 
from the mould, and shows itself as a smooth vase, 
nearly two feet in height. The mouth is carefully 
finished, and a lid of the same clay fitted, and the cru- 
cible is ready for its further treatment. When placed 
in the furnace, the lids are sealed on with soft clay. 
The man who treads the clay needs a good stock of 
patience, for lumps, however small, are fatal to the 
crucibles. 

When the moment arrived, I was summoned to 
witness the casting. The men had tied round their 
shins pieces of old sacking, as protection from the 
heat; they opened the holes in the floor, knocked off 
the lid of the crucible, and two of them, each with 
tongs, lifted the crucible from the intensely heated 
furnace. How it quivered, and glowed, and threw off 
sparks, and diffused around a scorching temperature ! 
It amazed me that the men could bear it. When two 
crucibles are lifted out, they are emptied at the same 
time into the mould; not hap-hazard, but with care 
that the streams shall unite, and not touch the sides of 
the mould as they fall. Neglect of this precaution 
injures the quality. Another precaution is to shut 
out cold draughts of air during the casting. To judge 
by the ear, you would fancy the men were pouring 
out gallons of cream. 

2b 



370 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

The contents of two crucibles form an ingot, short, 
thick, and heavy. I saw a number of such ingots in 
the yard. The next process is to heat them, and to 
pass them while hot between the rollers which convert 
them into bars of any required form. I was content 
to forego a visit to the rolling-mill — somewhere in the 
suburbs — being already familiar with the operation of 
rolling iron. 

We have now the steel in a form ready for the file- 
makers. Two forgers, one of whom wields a heavy 
two-handed hammer, cut the bars into lengths, and 
after a few minutes of fire and anvil, the future file is 
formed, one end at a time, from tang to point, and 
stamped. For the half-round files, a suitable de- 
pression is made at one side of the anvil. Then comes 
a softening process to prepare the files for the men 
who grind or file them to a true form, and for tooth- 
ing. To cut the teeth, the man or boy lays the file on 
a proper bed, takes a short, hard chisel between the 
thumb and finger of his left hand, holds it leaning 
from him at the required angle, aiid strikes a blow 
with the hammer. The blow produces a nick with a 
slight ridge by its side ; against this ridge the chisel is 
placed for the next stroke, and so on to the next, until, 
by multiplied blows, the file is fully toothed. The 
process takes long to describe, but is, in reality, expe- 
ditious, as testified by the rapid clatter. Some of the 
largest files require two men — one to hold the chisel, 
the other to strike. For the teeth of rasps, a pyra- 
midal punch is used. The different kinds of files are 
described as roughs, bastard cut, second cut, smooth, 
and dead smooth; besides an extraordinary heavy 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 371 

sort, known as rubbers. According to the cut, so is 
the weight of the hammer employed. Many attempts 
have been made to cut files by machinery; but they 
have all failed. There is something in the varying 
touch of human fingers imparting a keenness to the 
bite of the file, which the machine with its precise 
movements cannot produce — even as thistle spines 
excel all metallic contrivances for the dressing of 
cloth. And very fortunate it is that machinery can't 
do everything. 

After the toothing, follows the hardening. The 
hardener lays a few files in a fire of cinders ; blows the 
bellows till a cherry-red heat is produced; then he 
thrusts the file into a stratum of charcoal, and from 
that plunges it into a large bath of cold water, the 
cleaner and colder the better. The plunge is not made 
anyhow, but in a given direction, and with a varying 
movement from side to side, according to the shape 
of the file. The metal, as it enters the water, and for 
some seconds afterwards, frets and moans piteously; 
and I expected to see it fly to pieces with the sudden 
shock. But good steel is true; the man draws the 
file out, squints along its edge, and if he sees it too 
much warped, gives it a strain upon a fulcrum, 
sprinkling it at the same time with cold water. He 
then lays it aside, takes another from the fire, and 
treats it in a similar way. 

The hardened files are next scrubbed with sand, 
are dried, the tangs are dipped into molten lead to 
deprive them of their brittleness; the files are rubbed 
over with oil, and scratched with a harder piece of 
metal to test their quality — that is, an attempt is made 
2 b 2 



372 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

to scratch them. If the files be good, it ought to fail. 
They are then taken between the thumb and finger, 
and rung to test their soundness ; and if no treacherous 
crack betray its presence, they are tied up in parcels 
for sale. 

I shall not soon forget the obliging kindness with 
which explanations were given and all my questions 
answered by a member of the firm, who conducted me 
over the works. When we came to the end, and I 
had witnessed the care bestowed on the several opera- 
tions, I no longer wondered that a Bohemian Mecha?iiker 
in the heart of the Continent, or artisans in any part 
of the world, should find reason to glory in English 
files. Some people are charitable enough to believe 
that English files are no unapt examples of English 
character. 

Sheffield is somewhat proud of Chantrey and Mont- 
gomery, and honours Elliott by a statue, which, tall of 
stature and unfaithful in likeness, sits on a pedestal in 
front of the post-office. I thought that to ramble out 
to one of the Corn-Law Rhymer's haunts would be an 
agreeable way of spending the afternoon and of view- 
ing the scenery in the neighbourhood of the town. I 
paced up the long ascent of Broome Hill — a not un- 
pleasing suburb — to the Glossop road, and when the 
town was fairly left behind, was well repaid by the 
sight of wooded hills and romantic valleys. Amidst 
scenery such as that you may wander on to Went- 
worth, to WharnclifF, the lair of the Dragon of Want- 
ley, to Stanedge and ShireclifT, and all the sites of 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 373 

which Elliott has sung in pictured phrase or words of 
fire. We look into the valley of the Rivelin, one of the 

" Five rivers, like the fingers of a hand," 

that converge upon Sheffield; and were we to explore 
the tributary brooks, we should discover grinding 
wheels kept going by the current in romantic nooks 
and hollows. What a glorious sylvan country this 
must have been 

" in times of old 

When Locksley o'er the hills of Hallara chas'd 
The -wide-horn'd stag, or with his bowmen bold 
Wag'd war on kinglings." 

Troops of women and girls were busy on the slopes 
gathering bilberries, others were washing the stains 
from their hands and faces at a roadside spring, others 
— who told me they had been out six miles — were re- 
turning with full baskets to the town. How they 
chattered ! About an hour's walking brings you to a 
descent; on one side the ground falls away precipi- 
tously from the road, on the other rises a rocky cliff, 
and at the foot you come to a bridge bestriding a 
lively brook that comes out of a wooded glen and 
runs swiftly down to the Rivelin. This is the " lone 
streamlet " so much loved by the poet, to which he 
addresses one of his poems : 

" Here, if a bard may christen thee, 
I'll call the Ribbledin." 

I turned from the road, and explored the little glen 
to its upper extremity; scrambling now up one bank, 
now up the other, wading through rank grass and 



374 A MONTH IN YOEKSHIRE. 

ferns, striding from one big stone to another, as com- 
pelled by the frequent windings, rejoiced to find that, 
except in one particular, it still answered to the poet's 
description : 

" Wildest and lonest streamlet ! 

Gray oaks, all lichen'd o'er! 
Rush-bristled isles, ye ivied trunks 

That marry shore to shore ! 
And thou, gnarl'd dwarf of centuries, 

Whose snak'd roots twist above me ! 
Oh, for the tongue or pen of Burns, 

To tell ye how I love ye !" 

The overhanging trees multiply, and the green 
shade deepens, as you ascend. At last I came to the 
waterfall — the loneliest nook of all, in which the 
Rhymer had mused and listened to the brook, as he 
says: 

" Here, where first murmuring from thine urn, 
Thy voice deep joy expresses ; 
And down the rock, like music, flows 
The wildness of thy tresses." 

It was just the place for a day-dream. I sat for 
nearly an hour, nothing disturbing my enjoyment but 
now and then the intrusive thought that my holiday 
was soon to end. However, there is good promise of 
summers yet to come. I climbed the hill in the rear 
of the fall, where, knee- deep in heath and fern, I 
looked down on the top of the oaken canopy and a 
broad reach of the valley; and intended to return to 
the town by another road. But the attractions of the 
glen drew me back; so I scrambled down it by the 
way I came, and retraced my outward route. 

The one particular in which the glen differs from 
Elliott's description is, that an opening has been made 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 375 

for, as it appeared to me, a quarry or gravel-pit, from 
which a loose slope of refuse extends down to the 
brook, and encroaches on its bed, creating a de- 
formity that shocks the feelings by what seems a dese- 
cration. I thought that Ribbledin, at least, might 
have been saved from spade and mattock; and the 
more so as Sheffield, poisoned by smoke, can ill afford 
to lose any place of recreative resort in the neighbour- 
hood. It may be that I felt vexed; for after my re- 
turn to London, I addressed a letter on the subject to 
the editor of the Sheffield Independent, in the hope 
that by calling public attention thereto, the hand of 
the spoiler might be stayed. 

As I walked down to the railway-station the next 
morning in time for the first train, many of the chim- 
neys had just begun to vent their murky clouds, and 
the smoke falling into the streets darkened the early 
sunlight ; and Labour, preparing to " bend o'er thou- 
sand anvils," went with unsmiling face to his daily 
task. 

Away sped the train for Manchester; and just as 
the Art Treasures Exhibition was opening for the 
day, I alighted at the door. 

Less than half an hour spent in the building suf- 
ficed to show that it was a work of the north, not of 
the south. There was a manifest want of attention 
to the fitness of things, naturally to be looked for in a 
county where the bulk of the population have yet so 
much to learn ; where manufacturers, with a yearly in- 
come numbered by thousands, can find no better even- 
ing resort than the public-house; where so much of 
the thinking is done by machinery, and where steam- 



376 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

engines are built with an excellence of workmanship 
and splendour of finish well-nigh incredible. 

For seven hours did I saunter up and down and 
linger here and there, as my heart inclined — longest 
before the old engravings. And while my eye roved 
from one beautiful object to another, I wondered more 
and more that the Times and some other newspapers 
had often expressed surprise that so few comparatively 
of the working-classes visited the Manchester Exhibi- 
tion. Those best acquainted with the working-classes, 
as a mass, know full well how little such an exhibition 
as that appeals to their taste and feelings. To appre- 
ciate even slightly such paintings and curiosities of 
art as were there displayed, requires an amount of 
previous cultivation rare in any class, and especially so 
in the working-classes. For the cream of Manchester 
society, the Exhibition was a fashionable exchange, 
where they came to parade from three to five in the 
afternoon — the ladies exhibiting a circumference of cri- 
noline far more ample than I have ever seen elsewhere ; 
and of them and their compeers it would be safe to 
argue that those attracted by real love of art were but 
tens among the thousands who wen*" -for pastime and 
fashion. 

To me it seems, that of late, we have had rather too 
much talk about art; by far too much flattery, of the 
artist and artificer, whereby the one with genius and 
the one with handicraft feel themselves alike ill-used' 
if they are not always before the eyes of the world held 
up to admiration. And so, instead of a heart working 
inspired by love, we have a hand working inspired by 
hopes of praise. The masons who carved those quaint 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 377 

carvings at Patrington worked out the thought that 
was in them lovingly, because they had the thought, 
and not the mere ambitious shadow of a thought. And 
their work remains admirable for all time, for their 
hearts were engaged therein as well as heads and 
hands. But now education and division of labour are 
to do everything; that is, if flattery fail not; and in 
wood-engraving we have come to the pass that one 
man cuts the clouds, another the trees, another the 
buildings, and another the animal figures; while on 
steel plates the clouds are "executed" by machinery. 
For my part, I would be willing to barter a good deal 
of modern art for the conscience and common honesty 
which it has helped to obscure. 

We are too apt to forget certain conclusions which 
ought to be remembered ; and these are, according to 
Mr. Penrose, that, a No government, however imperial, 
can create true taste, or combine excellence with pre- 
cipitation; that money is lavished in vain where good 
sense guides neither the design nor the execution ; and 
that art with freedom, of which she is one manifesta- 
tion, will not condescend to visit the land where she is 
not invited by the spontaneous instincts, and sustained 
by the unfettered •efforts of the people." 



378 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



A SHORT CHAPTER TO END WITH. 



Here, reader, we part company. The last day of 
July has come, and whatever may be my inclinations 
or yours, I must return to London, and report myself 
to-morrow morning at head-quarters. There will be 
time while on the way for a few parting words. 

If the reading of my book stir you up to go and see 
Yorkshire with your own eyes and on your own legs, 
you will, I hope, be able to choose a centre of explora- 
tion. For the coast, Flamborough and Whitby would 
be convenient ; for Teesdale, Barnard Castle ; for Craven, 
with its mountains, caves, and scars, Settle ; and for the 
dales, Kettlewell and Aysgarth. Ripon is a good start- 
ing-point for Wensleydale; and York, situate where 
the three Ridings meet, offers railway routes in all 
directions. My own route, as you have seen, was 
somewhat erratic, more so than you will perhaps ap- 
prove; but it pleased me, and if a man cannot please 
himself while enjoying a holiday, when shall he? 

A glance at the map will show you how large a 
portion of the county is here unnoticed; a portion 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 379 

large enough for another volume. The omissions are 
more obvious to you than to me, because I can fill 
them up mentally by recollections of what I saw during 
my first sojourn in Yorkshire. A month might be 
well spent in rambles and explorations in the north- 
west alone, along the border of Westmoreland ; Knares- 
borough and the valley of the Nidd will generously 
repay a travel ; Hallamshire, though soiled by Sheffield 
smoke, is full of delightful scenery; and if it will 
gratify you to see one of the prettiest country towns in 
England, go to Doncaster. And should you desire 
further information, as doubtless you will, read Pro- 
fessor Phillips's Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coast of 
Yorkshire — a book that takes you all through the 
length and breadth of the county. It tells you where 
to look for rare plants, where for fossils ; reveals the geo- 
logical history ; glances lovingly at all the antiquities ; 
and imparts all the information you are likely to want 
concerning the inhabitants, from the earliest times, the 
climate, and even the terrestrial magnetism. I am 
under great obligations to it, not only for its science 
and scholarship, but for the means it afforded me, com- 
bined with previous knowledge, of choosing a route. 

As regards distances, my longest walk, as mentioned 
at the outset, was twenty-six miles ; the next longest, 
from Brough to Hawes, twenty-two; and all the rest, 
from fourteen to eighteen miles. Hence, in all the 
rambles, there is no risk of over-fatigue. I would in- 
sert a table of distances, were it not best that you 
should inquire for yourself when on the spot, and have 
a motive for talking to the folk on the way. As for 



380 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

the railways, buy your time-table in Yorkshire ; it will 
enlighten you on some of the local peculiarities, and 
prove far more useful than the lumbering, much- 
perplexed Bradshaw. 

Of course the Ordnance maps are the best and most 
complete ; but considering that the sheets on the 
large scale, for Yorkshire alone, would far outweigh 
your knapsack, they are out of the question for a 
pedestrian. Failing these, you will find Walker's 
maps — one for each Riding — sufficiently trustworthy, 
with the distances from town to town laid down along 
the lines of road, and convenient for the pocket 
withal. 

Much has been said and written concerning the 
high cost of travelling in England as compared with 
the Continent} but is it really so? Experience has 
taught me that the reverse is the fact, and for an 
obvious reason — the much shorter distance to be tra- 
velled to the scene of your wanderings. In going 
to Switzerland, for example, there are seven hundred 
and fifty miles to Basel, before you begin to walk, 
and the outlay required for such a journey as that 
is not compensated by any trifling subsequent ad- 
vantage, if such there be. Some folk travel as if 
they were always familiar with turtle and cham- 
pagne at home, and therefore should not complain 
if they are made to pay for the distinction. But 
if you are content to go simply on your own merits, 
wishing nothing better than to enjoy a holiday, 
it is perfectly possible, while on foot, to travel for 
four-and -sixpence a day, sometimes even less. And 



A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 381 

think not that because you choose the public-house in- 
stead of the hotel you will suffer in regard to diet, or 
find any lack of comfort and cleanliness. The advan- 
tage in all these respects, as I know full well, is not 
unfrequently with the house of least pretension. More- 
over, you are not looked on as a mere biped, come in 
to eat, drink, and sleep, by a waiter who claims his fee 
as a right; but a show of kindly feeling awaits you, 
and the lassie who ministers to your wants accepts 
your gift of a coin with demonstrations of thankful- 
ness. And, again, the public-house shows you far 
more variety of unsophisticated life and character than 
you could ever hope to witness in an hotel. Certain 
friends of mine, newly-wedded, passed a portion of 
their honeymoon at the Jolly Herring at Penmaen- 
mawr, with much more contentment to themselves 
than at the large hotels they afterwards visited in the 
Principality, and at one-half the cost. 

Among the inns at which I slept while on my 
ramble, there are three of which you will do well to be- 
ware — that is, if you dislike excessive charges : namely, 
the Minerva at Hull, the White Hart at Hawes, the 
Fleece at Thirsk. 

The sum total of my walking amounts to three 
hundred and seventy-five miles. If you go down 
to Yorkshire, trusting, as I hope, to your own legs 
for most of your pleasure, you will perhaps outstrip 
me. At any rate, you will discover that travelling 
in England is not less enjoyable than on the Con- 
tinent; may be you will think it more so, especially 
if, instead of merely visiting one place after another, 



382 A MONTH IN YORKSHIRE. 

you really do travel. You require no ticket-of-leave 
in the shape of a passport from cowardly emperor or 
priest-ridden king, and may journey at will from 
county to county and parish to parish, finding some- 
thing fresh and characteristic in each, and all the while 
with the consciousness that it is your own country : 

" Our Birth-land this ! around her shores roll ocean's sounding waves; 
Within her breast our fathers sleep in old heroic graves; 
Our Heritage ! with all her fame, her honour, heart, and pow'rs, 
God's gift to us — we love her well — she shall be ever ours." 



INDEX. 



Addleborough, 240, 245 

Aire, river, 321, 337 

source of, 331 

Aldborough, 68 

Alum, manufacture of, 139 ; hew- 
ing, 140; roasting, 141; soak- 
ing, 143 ; crystallising, 144 

Alumshale Cliffs, 140 

Arncliffe, 136 

Askrigg, 241 

Atwick, 74 

Austin's Stone, 49 

Aysgarth, 287 

Force, 242, 290 

Bain, river, 247 
Bainbridge, 234, 238 
Balder, river, 194, 203 
Barden Fell, 274 

Tower, 278 

Barmston, 58, 76 
Barnard Castle, 193 
Barnsley, 360 
Batlev,"351 
Bay Town, 117 
Beverley, 40, 48, 56 
Birkdale, 213 
Bishopdale, 286 
Bishopthorpe, 317 
Blackamoor, 121 
Bolton Abbey, 273 

Castle, 241 286, 293 

village, 293 

Boroughbridge, 201 
Boulby, 163 
Bowes, 198 
Bradford, 345 
Bridlington, 77 
Brignall Banks, 200 
Brough, 220 
Brunanburgh, 51 



Buckden, 285 

Pike, 285 

Burnsall, 282 
Burstall Garth, 28 
Burstwick, 21 
Buttertubs Pass, 230 
Byland Abbey, 315 

Calder, river, 351, 359 
Caldron Snout, 211 
Cam Fell, 249 
Carnelian Bay, 100 
Carperby, 292 
Carrs, the, 58 
Cayton Bay, 100 
Chapel-le-Dale, 252, 257 
Clapdale, 261 
Clapham, 261 
Cleathorpes, 10, 37 
Cleckheaton, 350 
Cleveland, 137, 179 
Cloughton, 109 
Coatham, 172, 175 
Cotherstone, 202 
Cottingham, 40 
Counterside, 247 
Coverdale, 242 
Coverham Abbey, 242 
Coxwold, 315 
Craven, 260, 332 
Cray, 286 
Cronkley Scar, 210 
Cross Fell, 217 

Dane's Dike, 82, 93 
Darlington, 191 
Deira, 49 

Derwent, river, 314 
Dewsbury, 351 
Dimlington, 34 
Dinsdale Spa, 191 



384 



INDEX. 



Drewton, 49 
Driffield, 50 
Dunsley, 148 

Easby heights, 185 

Abbey, 298 

East-row, 137 

Witton, 243 

Eden, river, 224 
Egliston Abbey, 197 
Egton, 134 
Egton Bridge, 136 
Esk, Vale of, 121, 124,134 
Eston Nab, 177, 188 

Filey, 94, 99 

Brig, 94, 96 

Flamborough, 85 

South Landing, 83 

North Landing, 92 

Lighthouse, 87 

Head, 69, 77, 87, 88 

Fountains Abbey, 302 
Freeburgh Hill, 167 

Gatekirk Cave, 258 
Gearstones, 252 
George Fox's Well, 324 
Giggleswick, 322 
Gilling, 315 
Godmanham, 50 
Goldsborough, 149 
Gordale Scar, 327 
Gormire Lake, 309 
Great Ayton, 185 
Greta Bridge, 199, 201 
Grimsby, 10 
Grinton, 226, 229 
Gristhorp Bay, 99 
Grosmont, 133 
Guisborough, 177 

Prioiy, 178 

Moors, 182 

Haiburn Wvke, 113 

Hambleton Hills, 217, 241, 309 

Handale, 167 

Hardraw Scar, 232 

Hornby, 244 

Harpham, 50 

Hart Leap Well, 295 



Hawes, 229, 231, 249 

Haworth, 334 

Hawsker, 121 

Heckmondwike, 350 

Hedon, 21 

Helbeck, the, 220 

Hehnsley, 313 

High Cope Nick, 215 

High Force, 205 

High Seat, 222 

Hinderwell, 154 

Holderness, 15, 20, 34, 49, 59, 70 

Holwick Fell, 209 

Hornsea, 67 

Mere, 65 

Howardian Hills, 315 
Hull, 13 

river, 14, 17, 59 

Humber, the, 8, 11, 12, 26 
Huntcliff Nab, 168 
Hurtle Pot, 256 
Hutton Lowcross, 181 
Hutton Eudby, 182 

Ingleborough, 217, 250, 259, 324 

Cave, 262 

Giant's Hole, 267 

Ingleton, 260 

Fell, 251 

Ironstone, 134 

Jervaux Abbey, 243 

Jet, 130 ; manufacture of, 131 

— diggers, 152 
Jingle Pot, 252 

Keighley, 333 
Kettleness, 148, 150 
Kettlewell, 2«4 
Kevingham, 21 
Kildale, 188 
Kilnsea, 27 
Kilnsey, 283 
Kilton, 1 69 
Kirkby Moorside, 314 
Kirkdale, 314 
Kirkleatham, 175 
Kirklees, 351 
Kirkstall Abbey, 321 

Langstrothdale, 285 



INDEX. 



385 



Lartington, 202 
Leeds, 321 
Leyburn, 242 
Lofthouse, 164 
Lowths, the, 48 
Lowmoor, 350 
Lythe, 149 

Maiden Way, the, 221 
Maize Beck, 214 
Malham, 326 

Cove, 331 

Tarn, 329 

Mallerstang, 224 
Malton, 314 
Marske, 170 
Marston Moor, 317 
Marton, 191 
Marvvood Chase, 194 
Meaux, 55 

Mickle Fell, 210, 213, 217 
Middleham, 242, 294 
Middlesborough, 184, 189 
Middleton-in-Teesdale, 204 
Millgill Force, 235 
Mirfield, 351, 359 
Mortham, 200 
Muker, 229, 230 
Mulgrave, 137, 147 
Cement, 140 

Nappa, 244 
Newby Head, 250 
Newlay, 322 
Newton, 190 
Nine Standards, 222 
Northallerton, 300 
Nunthorp, 190 

Oswaldkirk, 315 
Ouse, river, 318 
Ovington, 201 
Owthorne, 34 

Patrington, 22 
Paul, 10 
Peak, the, 116 
Pendle Hill, 324 
Pendragon Castle, 203 
Penyghent, 217, 285, 324 
Penhill, 242, 286 



Pickering, Vale of, 121, 314 
Pilmoor, 315 
Plowland, 26 

Raby, 194 
Raven Hall, 116 
Ravenhill, 148 
Ravenser Odd, 31 
Ravensworth. 200 
Raydale, 247 
Redcar, 170 
Red Cliff, 100 
Redshaw, 250 
Reeth, 230, 294 
Ribble, river, 252, 260, 323 
Ribbledin, the, 373 
Richmond, 200, 295 
Rievaulx Abbey, 311 
Ripon, 300 
Rivelin, the, 373 
Robin Hood, 107, 121 

Hood's Bay, 116 

Rokeby, 194, 197 
Rolleston Hall, 75 
Romaldkirk, 203 
Rosebury Topping, 168, 182 
Routh, 59 
Runswick, 150 
Rye, river, 310, 315 
Ryedale, 313 

Sandsend, 137 

Alum-works, 138 

Saltaire, 336 

Saltburn, 168 

Scarborough, 88, 99; Spa, 101 

Castle, 105 
Scarth Nick, 294 
Seamer Moor, 109 
Selwick's Bay, 88, 91 
Settle, 323 
Shaw, 231 
Sheffield, 362 
Shipley, 336, 344 
Shirecliff, 372 
Shunnor Fell, 224 
Sigglesthorne, 66 
Simmer Water, 247 
Simonstone, 231 
Skawton, 310 
Skeffling. 25 



2 C 



386 



INDEX. 



Skelton, 186 
Skinningrave, 165 
Skipsea, 76 
Skipton, 271 
Skirlington, 74 
Speeton, 93 
Spennitborne, 243 
Spurn, the, 30, 33 

lighthouse, 7, 36 

Stainmoor, 198, 219 
Staintondale Cliffs, 114 
Stnithes, 154 
Stake Fell, 246, 286 
Stalling Busk, 249 
Stamford Brig, 317 
Standard Hill, 54 
Stanedge, 372 
Starbottom, 285 
Stonesdale, 228 
Stockdale, 325 
Stockton, 191 
Street Houses, 164 
Strid, the, 276 
Sutton, 308 
Sunk Island, 8, 24 
Swaledale, 227, 230, 295 
Swale, river, 226 
Symon Seat, 274, 281 

Tan Hill, 225 

Tees, river, 171, 193, 197, 211 

Thirsk, 306 

Thoralby, 287 

Thornton Force, 258 

Thorsgill, 198 

Threshfield, 282, 332 

Thwaite, 228 

Tickton, 59 

Topcliffe, 43 

Towton, 317 



Ulshaw, 24i 
Upgang, 137 
Upleathara, 177 
Ure, river, 233, 290, 300 

Wakefield, 359 

Wassand, 66 

Watton, 55 

Weathercote Cave, 252 

Welwick, 26 

Wentworth, 372 

Wensleydale, 230, 231, 235, 241, 

286 
Wharfe, river, 278 
Wharfedale, 273, 283 
Wharncliff, 372 
AYhernside, Great and Little, 217, 

285 
Whitby, 127 

Abbey, 121 

Whitfell, 235 
Whitfell Force, 236 
Widdale, 249 
Wild Boar Fell, 224 
Winch Bridge, 205 
Winestead, 22 
Winston, 201 
Withernsea, 34 
Witton Fell, 242 
Wombwell, 361 
Wycliffe, 200 

Yarborough House, 81 
Yarm, 191 
Year by bank, 177 
Yordas Cave, 258 
York, Vale of, 315 
York, 316 



THE END. 



C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAN1>. 



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